Chin's Army
by AtoMaki
Summary: Set a year after Kuvira's fall, the thriving city of Ba Sing Se faces a crisis as the former Earth Empire soldiers and their supporters provoke unrest. Their only salvation could be Chin, the city's governor and a former battalion commander of the Earth Empire. However, Chin harbors secrets that makes the situation much more complicated.
1. Chapter 1: The Leaflet

Chin liked to assume that things would turn out for the worst. He didn't think of this as some sort of hopeless pessimism, but more like optimism based on pragmatism. After all, if someone always assumed the very worst, then things could only end up better.

This stance had always helped him in Kuvira's Earth Empire: when others were loosening up because of an easy task or a predictable good outcome, Chin was always preparing for the worst possible scenario – and when things turned bad, he was always the only one who had an answer at hand. Eventually, this had earned him a nice rank and many loyal allies. From a lowly bureaucrat, he had risen to be a battalion commander within two years, and the end was still far away.

A powerful rival would rise and destroy everything he had done. Probably kill him too. Or President Raiko and his cronies would sabotage his agenda and ruin his life. Yeah, Chin was pretty darn sure that one of these was going to happen. It was inevitable.

He turned his eyes away from the large window, and with that, he let his thoughts return to the situation at hand. He had three men and a woman sitting in front of his desk in the office. They looked nervous, and somewhat scared too. The weak winter sunlight oozing through the windows couldn't have been helping their morale either: it was cold and feeble, like a breath of death.

Chin licked his lips and after glancing across the four, he turned back to the window. The sight of Ba Sing Se from his penthouse was splendid. From the top of the city's first skyscraper, the newly built maglev tracks encircled the city with perfectly symmetric silver lines, only piercing towards the center at the borders of the four city quadrants, and forming another circle around the city center. As Chin imagined, from a bird's view, Ba Sing Se should look like a large Earth Empire emblem.

He rolled up the leaflet in his hand, and after a moment of thinking, turned back to his people again for an in-depth look.

They were just as miserable when he had turned away from them to enjoy the skyline. Two of the men were younger, maybe in their mid-twenties. They wore simple green clothes that looked a lot alike – almost like they were wearing uniforms - and they had the same uppercut hair. The third man was older, with a grey, long hair and shaggy beard. His brown, messy clothes also separated him from the other two men just nicely. The woman was one of those Kuvira-wannabes Chin had always loathed: strict looking, nice and tight, radiating competence and professionalism. Unfortunately, the woman didn't have the body type to pull this off: she was good two heads taller than the men next to her, and her massive muscles put a real strain on her tight clothes. She was also too young, barely twenty at best, but Chin had a nudge that she wasn't even fifteen. Her blue eyes also ruined the overall picture, but between looking like a humanoid armadillo-lion and being barely legal for civilian service, this was the least concerning detail.

A heavy sigh rolled out from between Chin's lips as he finally decided to discuss the inevitable. He knocked his desk with the rolled up leaflet twice, then threw it in the front of the bunch. It landed gracefully at the feet of the old man who almost fainted from his poor luck. After a second of sweat-laden hesitation, he gathered enough strength to pick it up and give it back to Chin. He almost overturned the lamp on the desk with his shaking arm, but Chin was prepared for this, and caught the lamp just in time.

"I…" started the old man, but Chin silenced him with a hand wave.

"Who is responsible for this?" Chin's voice was calm, maybe even resigned. This almost freaked out the woman, but the young man sitting next to her snapped her out with an encouraging hand squeeze. It was cute, Chin had to give them that.

"It was a group effort," answered the other young man. "We are all responsible."

This was exactly what Chin wanted to hear. Smearing away responsibility like this was low for these people, but it couldn't be helped.

"Someone still had to come up with the idea," Chin noted casually. "Like, who wrote that thing?"

"It was me." From the sound of her voice, the woman was truly close to fainting. Luckily, Chin had asked for his strongest guards for today just for this case.

Chin rolled out the leaflet, and began to read its content out loud.

" _We've been told to go home, but what awaits us there?_ " Making a small pause, he glanced through the group again with the same enthusiasm as a vulture would watch the thirsty wanderer in a desert. " _Will it be glory? Will it be love? Or will we be blamed for every tear and hardship?_ " He gently kicked the side of his deck, just to add some dramatic tension. " _Do you know what became of the URN's Equalists and their families? The lucky ones escaped during the night following Amon's ill-fated takeover. My brother was one of those lucky few - he lost the house he spent twelve back-breaking years paying for, he lost his wife because she could not forgive him what Amon did, he lost his children because she took them with her despite their tears, and he lost his inner drive...  
because after Amon and Hiroshi Sato decided to set the city afire he could no longer trust his own judgment._"

The two young men exchanged glances. Their faces were turning chalk-white, but it was still better than the woman's crimson-red expression that reminded Chin of the butts of those weird dancing monkeys from the skyscraper's waiting hall.

"We are well aware of the fact that you have only two sisters," added the old man cautiously. Chin just shook his head in disbelief and continued his reading.

" _Am I giving my brother a free pass to be a bigot? No, but his story is important because it shows that the actions of one man, like Amon, or one woman, like Kuvira, cannot dictate the treatment of the groups they lead. Not every or even most Equalists were fanatic monsters like Amon and his right hand men. Most Equalists were like my brother who was tired of the position society pushed him into._ "

"My brother was an Equalist," admitted one of the young men. "It has ruined our family."

" _By that same token we are not monsters! We are men and women who will not go back under the boots of an apathetic, greedy, hopelessly juvenile monarchy! We are not going to apologize for fighting for the rights and dignity of the common man or woman! We are not going to disappear along with our complaints or our dreams for the future! It doesn't matter if Kuvira was wrong in some of her actions - it doesn't matter if the Avatar beat her into submission._ "

The woman finally fainted. Two brawny guards immediately came in and took her away. They had some difficulty, but eventually managed to get her out of Chin's sight.

" _What matters is that we are still the ones with mechas, we still stand a million  
strong, and we do have the backing of most of the Earth Kingdom. Does that  
mean we will continue forward with the fool's errand of attacking the URN? No. But we will  
secure our borders, we will invest in infrastructure, and we will grow strong. Never again will  
we allow Others to dictate our growth, our worth, and our lives. And if they try we will tear  
them down like Kuvira should have torn down the Avatar._"

"We do have mechas!" protested the other young man, but Chin drowned his words with a stern gaze.

" _Those who do not agree are free to leave, but as for the rest of you - today marks our ascension!_ "

Reaching the end, Chin rolled the leaflet back up. He carefully sharpened one of its edges, and began to clean his nails with it. He did this all with nerve-racking composure, like what he had just read was just some sort of bad joke.

"So, did she come up with the idea too?" he asked after a long moment of silence.

"No, it was me," said the younger man with the Equalist brother. From the looks of it, he too was closing to a blackout.

"Guessed so." This was Chin's whole response.

He leisurely finished the nail cleaning, then handed the leaflet to the old man. He reacted fairly quickly, and touched the paper, setting it on fire with a small spark of his firebending. Chin watched as the flames consumed the leaflet, and threw it into a small metal container on his deck, prepared just for this occasion.

"Anything else?" Chin asked from the men, but all he got was lowered heads. He could almost smell their shame and regret in the air. "Good."

Now it was finally the time to end this inconvenience once and for all. Chin knew that they couldn't trust these guys with acting rationally all by themselves, so he had to open their eyes.

He started this with leaving the warm comfort of his chair. Chin walked to the window, but he was constantly watching the trio by their reflections. They now looked relieved, as Chin had just made it clear that he hadn't planned any serious punishment for them. If he had done that, he would have already presented it.

"I'm the legally elected governor of Ba Sing Se," he started thoughtfully. The men listened closely. "My battalion joined the City Watch, and they have been serving as the city's peacekeeping force ever since then. As the governor, I still have quite a bit of control over them, but it is nothing like back in the days of the Earth Empire. They are no longer _my_ battalion per se." He turned back towards the men and shot them a stern gaze. "There is no such thing as 'Chin's Army' anymore, no matter what certain elements in the city want to think."

"They are still your men!" protested the young man without the Equalist brother, but the old man silenced him with an elbow in the side.

"Yes they are, just like _everyone_ in Ba Sing Se." Chin made a small pause to let his words sink. "The Earth Empire has fallen. Anyone who is still clinging into it is a troublemaker and a potential insurrectionist."

"They cannot abandon the cause they fought for under Kuvira's banner," added the old man grumpily. "Many of them feel betrayed and ostracized. They roam the Earth States and all they can find is the same chaos they tried to dissolve." He looked up at Chin, and his eyes brightened up as he reached the most burdensome part. "But Ba Sing Se stands strong under your rule! The former soldiers of the Earth Empire flock into the city so that they can enjoy this little fraction of order, a ghost of the Empire! They all secretly hope that one day, _you_ will sally forth from the city and conquer the states once more, just as Kuvira did it four years ago! You are their last hope Chin!"

Chin only replied with a hearty laugh.

"This explains the sudden spike of rebellious activity in my city." The old man aged a few years on the spot upon seeing how Chin shrugged off his words. "I thought that the Republic City Triads were making a new home here…"

As he turned back to the window, Chin could feel a ball growing in his stomach. He had the numbers on these newcomers, and they weren't pleasing. If the old man had spoken the truth, then the city was on the brink of a full-scale riot, led by men and women with remarkable military training.

This turn of events was a great shame. Ba Sing Se had changed a lot in the last four years, the chaos that followed the Red Lotus Uprising was quelled quickly by Kuvira, and the city had been restructured to support her war efforts. The walls had been brought down by those anarchists, so the three Rings had been replaced with four Quadrants – one for each quarter of the heavens – and the palace had been demolished to give place to the new city center. As a matter of fact, Chin's skyscraper was standing on the former throne room. With extensive use of earthbending and metalbending, the city had been completely rebuilt in no time. Massive factories had grown out from nothing and the slums had been turned into spacious apartment complexes dotted with serene parks.

Yes, Ba Sing Se was maybe the largest and most prosperous city in the world, and Chin had all its assets at his command.

 _No, it was even more._

Chin sighed under the weight of his thoughts. This wasn't just about a bunch of disgruntled soldiers and their dreams for an old cause.

"Now, I will only give you a warning," he addressed the men ultimately. "You think you are doing something good, but I assure you, you aren't. To make things worse, you involved me without my consensus, or even my knowledge. That was… very unwise." He pushed a button on his desk and the door of his office opened up. "Leave, and never come into my sight again."

He could see tears in one of the young man's eyes as they left his office. It was saddening, but not in the way those three thought. They had tried to turn Chin into a hero, and they had failed terribly. Just the fact that they were serious about this filled Chin's heart with anger and disappointment. These people were trouble, yet, they wanted only good… just in the worst possible way.

Chin sat back to his chair, and after a few minutes of pondering, he reached for his phone. The secretary on the other end needed some time to answer the call.

"Governor? How can I be at your service?" The young, lively voice calmed Chin's mood a little. It was just good to hear that someone else had a fairly nice day.

"Please send a message to Director Jing that we must meet tomorrow at our favorite place in the right time."

"At your favorite place in the right time? Uhm… That's all?"

"Yes. She will know."

"Consider it done sir!"

"Thank you."

With this done, Chin left his office and entered the opposite room. It was empty sans a small cushion in the middle. Chin sat down on this, turning his back to the door. In front of him laid an ornate window looking at his penthouse garden. His eyes glanced through the thick green vines and the tiny purple flowers that filled the garden, until he could feel the lightness in his body.

Then he closed his eyes, left his physical form behind, and entered the Spirit World.


	2. Chapter 2: The Aftermath

Hayato left the penthouse with a sour taste in his mouth. He knew that for once it wasn't just his age messing with him again. It was the real deal, no matter how those two younglings tried to prove otherwise. Zheng, the younger and more zealous one, was adamant that they could succeed even after today's spectacular fiasco. Ling was older and thus more reasonable, but his optimism was sickening too.

He really felt lucky that the fourth member of their team, Tien, had put herself out of action. Her whining would have truly crowned the day.

After bidding a quick farewell to the younglings, he decided to play the role of the harbinger and make a detour to their headquarters to tell their crew the news. They deserved at least that much for their efforts.

His trip through the Western Quadrant was uneventful, as always. This section of the city was a residential area, with the maglev train cruising between sprawling habitation buildings and verdant parks. Everything was neat and clean, constantly kept this way by industrious community workers recruited from the jobless. Crime was almost non-existent under the vigilant presence of the City Watch, and the conflicts between humans and spirits also avoided the city.

Ba Sing Se was an almost perfect place.

 _Almost_.

Hayato could occasionally see the shadowed figures, lurking in the darkness or being chased by the City Watch. Young men and women, wearing ragged green uniforms, weary and half-starved, but with fire in their eyes. Surrounded by a shroud of despair and purposelessness, they were just asking for trouble.

He witnessed a disturbing incident just as he got off from the train: a woman in tattered Earth Empire stormtrooper clothes was cornered by the City Watch at one of the automated ticket-stands – from the shouts, it looked like she was trying to rob the machine when the Watch caught her. She made a run towards the nearest train – the one Hayato also planned to board – but she had no chance. The City Watch was accompanied by two of those monstrous bloodhound-spirits, massive dog-like creatures with jaws that could mangle steel and limbs that could outrun a maglev train. They darted forward as one and reached the train before the woman could even make a step. Her eyes opened wide as she finally understood her situation. As a last-ditch attempt, she turned towards the approaching City Watch.

"Please, comrades! Don't-" she cried, but her words were stifled by a shock-baton that hit her head. Another jabbed her in the stomach, but she was too tough – and too stubborn – to give up. The woman broke free and made a few wavering steps towards the exit…

…but one of the bloodhound-spirits also felt the need to get a piece of her, and rushed the poor woman. Her screams cut into the station's usual noises like a hunter's knife into his prey's flesh. The bloodhound-spirit was at least four times bigger than her, and in its bestial mouth the woman looked like an unlucky doll caught and being mauled by a stray dog. A very angry stray dog.

The scene only lasted a few minutes, but it was a perfect representation of the city's secret shame. It wasn't just how the woman - miraculously alive- was eventually dragged away by the City Watch after the spirit had spit her out, but also the crowd's reaction: most citizens found the woman's struggle _funny_ , smiling on her misery; others were infuriated… as they thought that the City Watch was too delicate with this troublemaker, and they voiced their gratitude to the spirit-bloodhounds for _teaching her a lesson_.

It was disgusting, and this whole interlude only worsened Hayato's mood. That woman had fought in Kuvira's war, risked her life and experienced all sorts of horrors just to ensure the Empire's prosperity. In return, society had chewed her and spat her out, just like that bloodhound-spirit.

The train took him and his dark thoughts out of the Western Quadrant, into an endless sea of metal and glass. This was the so-called Agriskirts, a dense network of hydroponic farms, food processing plants, and warehouses, all serving the sole purpose of keeping the city fed. Formerly, this land had been brown and green from the rolling hills of cropland, but the rise of the new city had changed this, just like a lot of other things. Basic agriculture couldn't sustain the growing needs, so it had been improved - replaced - with advanced technology. Now, Hayato couldn't find even a single patch of grass on the ground, only rice, vegetables, and fruits floating in vast tanks of water.

Hayato got off at the remains of Ba Sing Se's Outer Wall. Another place that felt the winds of change. Roughly one year after Kuvira had reclaimed the city, a large project had been initiated to reclaim the desert outside of the Outer Wall. To do this, the wall's outer face was carefully re-carved into a maze of wind-channels, directing the vapor from the nearby sea onto the barren lands. It worked to an extent, as the desert had become a prairie, but it was still far from the original goal so the project had been abandoned, as had the walls themselves.

However, the place was far from deserted. In the large guard towers that rose alongside the wall, people lived. Those who couldn't find a place in the city were forced to live here, in the barely-habitable ruins, using the ancient, ramshackle infrastructure and living off scraps and the occasional mercy of the city government.

It was perfect place to hide operations that stood on the fine line between legality and illegality. Like the one Hayato was part of.

Their headquarters was rather far away from the train station, a good half hour of walking through the sad remains of the Outer Wall. It was in a miraculously intact guard tower, occupying the whole upper level. Bristling with badly concealed activity, its light and noise was clearly perceivable from far away, especially now, as the sunset approached and the world around the tower grew dark and quiet.

As Hayato stepped through the entrance, he was welcomed by an even bigger chaos than usual. The place had only one massive room, that served as a command center, storehouse, and manufacturing facility, all in one. There were desks, containers, and all sorts of machinery scattered around in a haphazard manner, just asking for an accident. From the looks of it, this had been the case today, just as yesterday or the day before. Or almost any day since they had moved in.

A large container had crashed down to a power generator, and the device hadn't taken the hit very well: its core was cracked, and it was now emitting a long jet of fire into the air, creating a wild inferno in that area. Men and women were running around helplessly, trying to put out the fire, but they had very little success.

Ironically, the fire was burning their freshly printed leaflets. If this wasn't a sign from fate, then Hayato had no idea what could be.

A young man finally noticed him. He made a few hand moves towards Hayato, and from them, the old man knew that this wasn't the time he could talk to anyone, so he turned around and left the room.

He waited almost a whole hour outside until the young man appeared in the door. Since then, smoke had started to seep from the windows, but according to the sounds, the fire had been successfully extinguished.

"You are early, professor!" The warm welcome made Hayato smile. According to the man's reaction, it looked much more miserable than Hayato felt. "Is everything okay?"

"No, nothing is okay," replied Hayato with a tired voice. "Chin doesn't even want to know about us. The meeting was a nightmare."

"Oh. That's quite unfortunate. What about the others?"

"Tien fainted half way through. Zheng and Ling took it better, but they aren't too optimistic either."

"Uhm... And the leaflet?"

"He made me burn it."

The young man scratched his head, and turned back to the door. Hayato could see on him that he was thinking about that huge pile of ash in the middle of the room. Apparently, the parallel didn't elude him either.

"We distributed a lot of those in the city today," noted the man. He became more and more nervous with every passing moment. "They really liked it y'know. Made them all fired up and stuff."

Hayato just sighed.

"Any incidents?"

"Just the usual chase with the City Watch. We threw them off quickly."

"Lucky for you. I saw a woman getting much worse in the Quadrant end station."

"Did they have those bloodhound-spirits?"

"They did."

The man hissed and massaged his left forearm as he relived some painful memories. Those bloodhound-spirits were serious business, and only a few around Hayato had bodies without at least a small bite mark.

A moment of silence befell upon them. Two other men stumbled out from the room, carrying a huge pile of half-burnt leaflets. They unceremoniously dropped the pack not far away from Hayato and started sorting out the useable leaflets. The old man just watched them as they struggled to save something from that sad pile of charred paper. The only reason he didn't make them stop was their simple delight whenever they could find a miraculously intact leaflet – he didn't want to ruin their happiness.

"So, I hate to ask this, but what now?" The young man took out a bunch of notes. "I have twenty-four new names. Their ol' identification numbers too. Hoshi and Kalden are already out there to interview them."

"When did they leave?"

"Shortly before you came. Guess they are already on the train."

Hayato turned back to the city, musing on its warm lights. From the distance of the Outer Wall, Ba Sing Se looked like a thick fog of gold and silver, swirling low above the ground but constantly trying to reach up towards the night sky. The majestic sight eased his thoughts and let him think clearly, maybe the first time since he had entered Chin's office.

"We are going to suspend our activities for the time being." He said eventually. "Empty the headquarters, and transport any incriminating objects to our secondary hideout. From now on, we reassume our cover as a harmless charity organization." Hayato turned back to the young man and gave him an encouraging pat on his back. "Tell this to everyone, and report me back at the university when it is all done and settled."

The first response from the man was a confused frown. He opened his mouth like he had something to say, but then he closed it without giving away a single voice. Hayato watched as he walked away and began to round up the others, beginning with the two who were still busy sorting out the burnt leaflets.

Hayato waited until the men disappeared behind the door, then unceremoniously left the place and headed back to the train station.

He still had a few things to put straight tonight, and he didn't want to delay lest he end up in the same situation as the people he was trying to protect.


	3. Chapter 3: The Gathering

Their train stopped at the Southern Quadrant's outskirts, a small strip of warehouses and vehicle depots that separated the city's light industrial district from the Agriskirt's hydroponic farms. Hoshi and Kalden left the station without any incident, though a City Watch patrol had noticed them as they had tried to push their way through the mass of workers swarming into the train. It wasn't just their green, uniform-like clothing that drew the unneeded attention, but Hoshi was also quite conspicuous with her large, rounded belly. At first, the patrol had almost tried to offer their help to the "young couple" but they couldn't reach them in time and the two had slipped away.

Kalden felt like they were really lucky this time. He had chatted enough with City Watch patrols in the last few months, and by now, he was quite tired of covering up Hoshi. She was his younger sister after all, but revealing that the happy father was a former Earth Empire soldier was out of question. So most of the time, Kalden had had to play the role of the loving husband, and it had been growing very embarrassing very fast.

Of course, Kalden's handsome features, short brown hair, green eyes and tanned skin didn't really sell him as the brother of Hoshi, whose prettiness was modest at best, and her long black hair, gray eyes and pale skin made quite a difference next to her brother. It was even worse when she started to airbend, especially if it happened after Kalden had displayed some of his earthbending or metalbending.

"Already falling asleep?" Hoshi's cheerful voice snapped out Kalden from his pondering, and he almost stumbled over from the sudden change. "Come on sleepyhead, the meeting point should be behind the next corner!"

Kalden stretched his arms. He did feel tired after all those printing work in the headquarters. They had made at least a million of those leaflets.

"Don't hurry girl," he murmured between two yawns. "Those guys can wait. But if the City Watch catches us, then this was all good for nothing."

Hoshi just pinched his face.

"This one is going to be different!" she said cryptically. "Pick up some speed!"

"Easy for you, young airbender. This old earthbender next to you must move slowly and carefully so that his connection with the very earth under our feet remains undisturbed."

She laughed and span into the air. Kalden watched as she remained mid-air for a long moment before gracefully sliding back to the ground. As always, this little airbending show made him smile.

"See? Just try to follow me! Be the leaf!"

Hoshi lifted herself into the air again, making another gliding leap. This time, however, Kalden sprung forward, earthbending the pavement in front of him into a small slide. Hoshi laughed up again as she noticed her brother joining the fun.

"I see your connection is paying off!" she giggled, and fastened her pace. Soon, they were racing through the street with full speed, propelled forward by their bending powers. Hoshi had an advantage, but Kalden was the better bender, so he quickly gained the lead.

The good times didn't last long though. Just as Kalden reached the corner, he could hear a muffled scream from behind, high in the air. He immediately turned back, and spread his arms to turn a large patch of pavement into soft dust. Just in time, as Hoshi crash-landed in the grey dust with a large thump. Kalden wasted no time to rush to her sister and help her up. Luckily, she was unharmed.

"Again, how does a pregnant leaf fly?" he asked her sternly.

"A pregnant leaf doesn't fly," answered Hoshi quietly, with the unmistakable ring of shame in her voice. "Thank you."

"You can leap, but no flight," emphasized Kalden, just to be sure. Of course, this was something like the twelfth fall since Hoshi's pregnancy had been discovered seven months ago. Though, at least Kalden grew experienced with saving her. The very first time Hoshi had done this had been a reoccurring memory in his worst nightmares even to this day.

Just to be sure, Kalden carried his sister to the corner in his hands, and only let her walk on her own after he made sure that she was okay.

"Okay, you won the race," he said as he gently pushed Hoshi through the corner. "No need to airbend again for the rest of the day!"

Hoshi blushed, and smiled.

"Got it, no airbending. Sorry."

This improved the mood between them a little after that scary accident. They walked to a nearby building without saying a word.

It was a large, abandoned garage. Its forefront still bore the sorry remnant of an Earth Empire emblem, and its empty windows stared darkly onto the street. It felt empty and lifeless, but there were signs of recent activity: the front gate had a hand-shaped imprint on its dusty latch and there was a leaflet lying on the ground in front of a window.

Kalden took up a stable stance and stomped the ground. Through his seismic sense, he could see the interior with perfect accuracy: the large container in the middle, the two wrecked mecha-suits next to it and the thirty-eight men and nine women sitting or standing around.

"How many should be in there?" he whispered to Hoshi.

"Twenty-four," came the quick reply.

"Double it and we are good to go."

Hoshi's shocked expression was a perfect representation of what Kalden felt. He couldn't sense who these people were. They could be City Watch. Those cursed bloodhound-spirits were undetectable by seismic sense, so Kalden couldn't even bet on their absence.

After a long moment of silence, Hoshi took the initiative and stepped to the gate, being ready to open it.

"This could be a trap!" warned her Kalden, but she proceeded anyway.

She soon disappeared through a narrow opening. Kalden hissed up as he realized what Hoshi had just done, but before he could run after her, an older woman appeared in the closest window.

"Don't use the gate!" she whispered angrily. "It is unsafe! Come in from the rear door for the Great Uniter's sake!"

Since it really didn't make any difference at this point, Kalden simply jumped through the window instead of heeding the woman's advice. His reward was a choir of angry hisses as he landed in a heap of scrap, causing enough clatter to startle the whole street.

"Who is this guy?" snapped a man from a dark corner. "Is he here to get the City Watch down to our neck?"

"He is with me," explained Hoshi from the opposite corner.

Someone finally switched on a lamp in the middle. Its faint light wasn't enough to illuminate the whole garage, but it at least revealed the most important thing: the people inside.

Wearing old, ragged Earth Empire uniforms, they were undoubtedly the people Hoshi and Kalden had been looking for. Just looking at them made Kalden both hungry and extremely tired – they all looked like people who hadn't had a single bite of food or a satisfying sleep since ages.

They were all former Earth Empire soldiers, now petty outcasts and refugees. The underdogs of Ba Sing Se.

"Do you have food?" asked one of the women after some awkward silence.

Kalden tossed his backpack in front of her without saying anything. The woman cautiously opened it up, but she became much more enthusiastic when she found the bread inside. It didn't take long before the outcasts all flocked to the backpack, trying to get some food, and completely ignoring their visitors for the time being.

Hoshi used this opportunity to look around and Kalden followed her. This place was probably some sort of hideout, with ragtag beds and other poor-quality everyday items lying around. They stopped at the two mecha-suits for a moment, and Kalden had to realize that one of the suits was indeed in operable condition.

"Hey, those suits are not for the curious!" interrupted them a man in a dirty mecha-suit pilot uniform. "Move away from them!" He ominously lifted a heavy wrench to give some weight to his words, but an older man with sergeant rank-signals calmed him down with a pat on the back and sent him back to the meal. Then he stepped to Hoshi.

"Sorry for Quan, he is really protective with his ladies," he said while nodding towards the mecha-suits. "Name is Tashi."

"I'm Hoshi."

"I'm Kalden."

Tashi glanced through them like he wasn't exactly sure what he was seeing.

"I thought Tien would come. Or maybe your professor, Hayato," he said eventually. "I wasn't waiting for a couple, that's for sure."

"I'm his sister," corrected him Hoshi. Maybe this wasn't the best information to give away as Tashi's eyes opened wide as he first looked at Hoshi's large belly then at Kalden.

"And the child is not mine," added Kalden quickly.

"Obviously," hummed Tashi as an apology.

The pilot returned, munching on a piece of bacon.

"The suits are still off limits, even if you are good guys!"

"At ease Quan, they mean no harm," calmed him Tashi, but Kalden could see that Quan was really in the mood to provoke a fight. Darkness lurked in his brown eyes, and what little muscle remained on his body was stiff from nervousness.

"Yeah, sure, they are no harm, you can just tell it…" He aggressively poked Kalden in the shoulder. "This cutie is more delicate than a City Watch rook'. I could bet that he wasn't in the war!"

"No I wasn't in the war," admitted Kalden. "Occupational disease forced me to skip it."

"Metalbending Police?" asked Tashi, and Kalden nodded. He didn't have to say more.

Quan was still unimpressed.

"What about the chick? Is she with the Air Nation?"

Hoshi and Kalden exchanged some surprised glances. They had no idea how Quan knew that Hoshi was an airbender.

"I'm not with the Air Nation," Hoshi said finally. She tried to sound as unfriendly as possible so that Quan would leave them alone, but the pilot missed the tone entirely.

"A rogue airbender and a former policeman from Dreamland City…" He rolled his eyes. "Paint me impressed. Why are you even helping us?"

Now this darkened Hoshi's so far rather neutral face as she passed her hand over her swollen belly.

"The father is one of 'us'. That's why," she noted coldly, and it finally sapped Quan's fighting spirit.

Tashi also decided to end this small dispute.

"Okay Quan, that's enough." He stood between the siblings and the pilot, just to be sure. "So, where is Tien anyway?"

"She, the professor, and two of our leaders are having a meeting with Chin." Hoshi's answer made Tashi smile. He drew out a leaflet from his belt and waved it in front of them.

"Is this true, then?" he asked excitedly. "Does Chin really want to make a difference now?"

His loud words drew in the others too. Kalden started to feel a little bit uncomfortable. Tien and the others wrote that leaflet, and Chin didn't even know that it existed. Or maybe he did now.

It was just propaganda, made-up to restore some hope.

Kalden was just about to force out some sort of explanation when Hoshi nudged him. He almost bit his tongue because of this, but when he turned to his sister, her chalk-white face immediately drowned out his unspoken rebuke.

The horror in her eyes as they were fixated to something behind and above Kalden told him more than a thousand words. He didn't even have to check the roof to imagine the silent, black figures standing in the top windows.

"We are being ambushed!" he shouted, but it was too late.

A body landed on the top of the container, probably the roof sentry as he wore the remains of an Earth Empire uniform. A woman screamed up, and Tashi assumed a fighting stance, almost launching an attack towards Hoshi and Kalden in the initial confusion. Then their attackers sprang into action.

The roughly two dozen figures were roughly humanoid, but their arms and legs ended in pointy, wedge-like limbs instead of hands or feet. Their strong, tall bodies were entirely featureless but oddly sleek, like they were formed from some sort of white, slightly glowing liquid.

 _Spirits!_

Kalden's mind immediately switched to overdrive. He picked up Hoshi and tore out a piece from the container with his metalbending to use it as a shield. Most of the spirits landed between the container and the rear door, only two stood in the way to the main gate, so Kalden darted out towards that direction.

From the corner of his eye, he could see that Quan had had good reflexes and reached his mecha-suit. This should buy them some time too.

A preternatural silence befell upon the garage as the spirits charged the outcasts. Kalden saw Hoshi's mouth opening to scream, but no voice could be heard. The same went with the battle behind him and even with his own footsteps. Everything was wrapped into a nightmarish cloak of perfect silence, so that the outside world couldn't notice the horror unleashed in the building.

The two spirits at the main gate remained still, and for the moment, Kalden had no idea why. But then, the gates opened up, revealing two bloodhound-spirits blocking the entrance from the street. Their massive, abnormally muscular bodies, jet black, oily skins and red eyes held a lot of bad things for Kalden, not to mention those bestial jaws and enormous claws.

One of the bloodhound-spirits charged forward, but ran past Kalden. He tumbled and fell to his back as the terrifying mass zoomed away, but this way, he could see as the bloodhound-spirit leapt onto the mecha-suit and easily knocked it down. Quan tried to shake off the beast, but his suit was no match to this kind of supernatural power. The claws plunged into the armored hull like it was made of jelly, and the jaw soon found the head. It didn't last long, maybe just a few seconds, but the mecha-suit was ruthlessly torn apart, and its mangled wreckage was thrown away like a useless toy.

This gruesome fight beat some sense back to Kalden. Still being dizzy from the fall, he managed to crouch up and pull a wide, steady motion with his arms and legs. The earth around him rose and finally melded into a protective cupola above and around Kalden and Hoshi. While he had a feeling that simple earth wouldn't help much against those spirit-bloodhounds, it was still better than nothing.

While their shelter was pitch-dark, the silence was gone. Kalden could hear his and Hoshi's heavy breathing, as well as the thumping on the ground from the nearby battle. It was like being imprisoned in a nightmare.

In many ways, this was exactly the situation at hand.

"Kalden?" Hoshi's voice was shaky from shock. "What's happening?"

"Some spirits ambushed us. I've never seen anything like them before. They also have two bloodhounds."

"The soldiers?"

"No way they can win."

Something hit their cover, but it wasn't strong enough to break through. Then came a series of thumping like a fist repeatedly hitting the earth shell.

"I'm scared, bro…" whimpered Hoshi.

"Me too sis, but we have to get out." Kalden tried to sound confident, and to his biggest surprise, he actually managed to do it. If not for his body shaking from fear, he would even believe that they could get out.

"Can we use the roof to escape?"

Hoshi's idea sounded plausible, but Kalden wasn't sure if he could create a big enough earth column to take them there before the spirits noticed them.

"I don't know. That would need some pretty big earthbending for pretty quickly."

"I can airbend us up there." There was a moment of perplexed silence after this proposition. "I know, pregnant leaf doesn't fly, but you must trust me!"

Kalden took a heavy breath and bid a silent farewell to his life.

"This is our only chance." Now his voice was shaky too. "Let's do it!"

He span around, and the earth cupola collapsed. The all-consuming silence returned, and just as Hoshi grabbed him, Kalden realized that they wouldn't make it.

In front of him, the battle raged on between the soldiers and the spirits like a bad mover. Hopelessly outmatched, Tashi and their people held their ground, their discipline and military training giving them just enough strength to not go down in an instant.

Two soldiers tore out a large slab of earth from the floor and launched it at a spirit. Their target reacted unnaturally quickly, and easily evaded the projectile. Its white, glowing form moved like lightning, zigzagging through the air with barely traceable speed. One of the soldiers tried a follow-up attack, but the spirit was faster and leapt onto him. Its limbs elongated, and wrapped around the poor soldier – a mere second later the limbs tightened and crushed the human in their grip.

Another spirit jumped at the other soldier, turning its body into a large web-like object in the air, enveloping its target completely. Kalden saw the white blob bulging as the soldier inside tried to fight his way out, then the whole thing twisted itself into a spiraling column.

This time, Kalden was glad for the silence.

Hoshi finally leapt upwards, dragging Kalden with her. She managed to gather enough power for her airbending, and their momentum seemed to be enough to reach the roof.

For a slipping moment, Kalden thought that they would really make it, even against all the odds.

A spirit finally noticed them as they passed half the distance to one of the road windows. It threw its arm towards the two, the limb growing into a long, thick tentacle as it reached the siblings and caught Hoshi's feet. Kalden could feel the rough pull, then he fell out from Hoshi's hands and his world turned black as he finally met with the floor below.

* * *

" _Please, please, please, please, please…_ "

Kalden blinked and shook his head as Hoshi's begging voice brought him back from the land of the unconscious. His thoughts were all around the place, and his body relayed all sorts of uncomfortable information.

Mostly pain.

And large fangs around his waist.

This last piece immediately adjusted his senses. His eyes sprung open, and he saw the world in all its turned-to-the-sides glory. As he turned his head around, he could witness his worst nightmare coming alive: the bloodhound-spirit that tore the mecha-suit apart now held him in its jaws, steadily but not to the point where it would hurt him. Next to them Hoshi kneeled on the ground, with the other bloodhound-spirit above her, holding her head between its jaws from behind.

"H-Hoshi…" groaned Kalden just to show that he was awake.

The girl immediately turned towards him, at least as much as her captor allowed her. She was badly shocked but miraculously unharmed physically. Just for that, Kalden thanked their kharma.

"Kalden! You are alive!" she whimpered between two sniffs. "They are…"

Her sentence was cut by a loud swearing. It was Tashi's voice.

Kalden tried his best to look to that direction, but all he could see were dead bodies and ruins. The garage was quite messed up, but better lit than last time. As far as he could determine, all the soldiers were dead other than Tashi, and grey figures walked among the sad remains, checking for signs of life.

It took him some time to realize that they were City Watch guards.

So he was either knocked out for longer than he thought, or the City Watch had improved their reaction time. They shouldn't have been here so quickly, especially at such a remote place of the city like these outskirts.

He tried to twist his body a little bit more to at least get a sight on Tashi, but the bloodhound-spirit held him well. Luckily, Tashi soon entered his vision regardless, carried into the middle of the garage by two guards. He was in a very bad shape: both his arms were broken and his face was just an unrecognizable pulp of fresh scars and bruises.

A third guard stepped to the old sergeant. He too carried marks of battle as half his face was unnaturally red, like it had been scorched recently. It was rally odd. Kalden hadn't seen a single City Watch guard in the fight, yet the only source that could have left such mark was the mecha-suit's flamethrower.

"Monsters…" coughed Tashi weakly when the burnt guard stopped in front of him. "You are gonna' pay for this…"

Instead of commenting this feeble threat, the guard just grabbed Tashi's chin and raised his head a little. He placed his other hand just in front of the old man's face, with his index finger pointing towards Tashi's left eye. It looked like he was about to poke the eye.

Kalden hissed up as he didn't really have the mood to witness such gruesome torture, but what followed surpassed even his wildest expectations. The guard's finger turned white, its end became pointy, then darted forward like a spear, growing into a long spike. Hoshi screamed up as the terrible appendage pierced Tashi's eye and sunk into his head. Kalden was too shocked to do even as much as breathe. His heart surely missed a beat or two as pure terror overtook his nerves, heralding things much worse than death.

He was too scared to even faint. Kalden just watched as the guard's terribly altered index finger began to glow with the same light as those humanoid spirits had. The scene didn't last long, and soon the limb retracted and changed back to a normal human index finger. Tashi's lifeless body was finally released, and hit the ground with a soft thump.

"There are two other hideouts in this sector," announced the guard to his comrades. "Let's move on. Our human colleagues are on their way. They will clean up instead of us."

The other guards nodded and left the building. The scorched guard – who should be their leader – stayed though, and walked right to Hoshi and Kalden.

He glanced through the siblings with the same expression an executioner would give to his next victim. Then his eyes met with the bloodhounds'.

"We are finished here, these two are the last ones," he stated blankly, but the spirit-bloodhounds gave no answer. The guard's eyes narrowed. "You know our orders. They must die too."

At this point, Kalden was sure that nothing could surprise him. A spirit-bloodhound holding him between its jaws against a bunch of murderous spirits who masqueraded as City Watch guards was already something that outstripped Kalden's imagination.

"They aren't going to die here," growled Kalden's spirit-bloodhound suddenly.

Now Kalden really freaked out. The spirit-bloodhounds didn't talk. Or at least nobody ever had heard them utter even a single human word. Now, it seemed like they could, and the deep, bestial voice sounded rather… _female_.

The fact that her jaws didn't move as she spoke yet Kalden could hear her words clearly was just a tiny addition to his unsettling discovery.

"If you have a problem with this, then notify the Ancient One," added Hoshi's bloodhound-spirit. _She sounded female too_. "But we are going to take these humans with us."

The guard just snorted and left without saying anything. The spirit-bloodhounds soon did the same. Kalden had a small chance to check the place better as his captor turned around. His heart twisted as he counted forty-six dead bodies scattered around. The forty-seventh was the mecha-suit – the mangled machine was leaking blood and oil from its many wounds, leaving no doubt for its pilot's fate.

Five other bloodhound-spirits waited for them outside. The dreadful pack left Kalden breathless. He had never seen so many bloodhounds-spirits in one place. Hoshi started to cry as the stress finally overcame her, but before Kalden could hush her, a bloodhound-spirit nudged her with its nose and she simply fainted with a feeble scream.

Kalden bid a silent farewell to his life, reliving all his better memories from his police training in Republic City to the big event when his job application to Unity Corps was accepted and he and Hoshi could move from their spirit-infested old home to a new one in Ba Sing Se.

He reached out towards his beloved sister to say goodbye, but he never had the chance to do this.

The bloodhound-spirit who held him suddenly leapt forward then upward, to the top of a nearby warehouse. There, she waited a little, then surged forward, racing through the city with neckbreaking speed. Considering his rather unfortunate position, Kalden didn't have the opportunity to enjoy the ride, neither he had the courage to complain. He was still trapped between jaws of the size of his body, so even though his head almost came off, he kept his personal discomfort for himself.

According to the apartment buildings around them, they stopped somewhere in the Western Quadrant, at an empty park. The bloodhound-spirit spat out Kalden with disgust written all over her monstrous face, and he hit the ground roughly. The others arrived too, with Hoshi on the back of a larger bloodhound-spirit. Unlike Kalden, she was put down to the ground carefully, though the move woke her up.

She wearily massaged her head, and made a failed attempt to sit up. Just when a spirit-bloodhound put its nose to her face she realized that she was surrounded by no less than seven massive beast spirits, each being capable of tearing her into shreds in no time easily. She tried to crawl away, but the bloodhound-spirits blocked her way. Kalden desperately witnessed as without a way to escape, Hoshi curled up and began to whimper. He wanted to save her somehow, but he couldn't move a limb, let alone attack or at least draw away the attention.

The spirit-bloodhounds sniffed Hoshi thoroughly, especially her face and belly. It was strange, but they looked rather confused, like they weren't exactly sure about what to do with the human in front of them.

"Please, don't hurt her!" forced out Kalden, but his voice was weak and pathetic, even for himself. Tears filled his vision, and his despair gave him just enough strength to lift his hand and reach out towards Hoshi and the bloodhound-spirits.

One of the creatures stepped to him, its red eyes mirroring puzzlement.

"Go home," the spirit-bloodhound said, her female voice lacking any sort of bestiality. It almost sounded soft.

With that, the spirit-bloodhounds left, their black bodies disappeared in the night quicker than Kalden could realize what had just happened.

His thoughts fading away like sunlight at dusk, he still managed to crawl to Hoshi. Only when his sister was finally in his arms he allowed himself to pass out.


	4. Chapter 4: The Spirits

The middle-aged man's face in the pond's mirror had wide and softly rounded features, with small lips and a flat nose. Large, grey eyes and black hair worn in a tight, old-fashioned topknot made the general impression complete: it was the face of a man who was radiating calmness and competence, with a desire for respect. It was the face of a ruler.

Chin mused on his reflection much longer than he should. He couldn't help it, he liked this face. It always managed to remind him his purpose, and made the path that had led him here much less sour to swallow.

As he kneeled in front of the pond, leaning over it so that he could see his face in the water, this path indeed looked not just bumpy but also rather tortuous. Each time Chin had accomplished something, a new nuisance had appeared straight out of nowhere, often with the sole purpose of temporarily thwarting him. If not for his excessive caution and foresight, he wouldn't have made it even this far.

He took a big breath, holding it in for a long moment before letting it out with a heavy sigh. The Spirit World around him twisted and twirled as massive energies ran through the air. Chin fixated his eyes on his reflection, and began the formation.

The clay in the pond's bottom rose, first into a small hump then into a continuously growing pillar. Chin carefully followed the figure, standing up when it became tall enough for his needs. Now being slightly higher than an average man, the column began to expand in width, until it looked more like a strange barrel.

Two appendages appeared on the sides, not far away from the top. They gained length quickly, and their ends divided into five-five smaller, finger-like things. The column then split from its bottom in a straight line up until its half.

With the frame done, Chin started to focus on the basic shape and proportions. His thoughts molded the clay with great practice, turning the bottom half of the column into a pair of legs, the two side appendages into arms, the middle into a torso and the top into a head.

Now, the clay had the form of a human male, with a big, powerful stature but unnaturally bland features. Chin took his time to work out the details, the shape of the eyes, the nose and the lips changed multiple times, and so did the muscle mass. He finally settled with fairly average looks, a strong jawline and wide shoulders.

The finalized statue then turned pink as the clay transformed into skin, flesh, and bone. Chin looked through his creation one more, and as his careful examination couldn't uncover any flaws on the body, he stepped to it to make the finishing touches.

Chin placed his left thumb on the statue's forehead, and his right thumb on its chest. He closed his eyes, and began the final move. With a flash of white light, raw energy flew through him from the Spirit World and into the body. The light filled up the empty shell, and obeying Chin's will, it turned green. The body under his touch shivered as it was filled with life. Shaping the green light, Chin gave him sentience, memories, knowledge, and power – things he would need for his task.

As the man opened his eyes and gasped for air, Chin released him and ended the ritual. The light disappeared, and the Spirit World around them returned to normal.

The newly created human wavered, like he was unsure how to stand on his legs. It was fairly normal for his kind, but Chin couldn't shoo away the feeling that something was missing.

He almost laughed up when he realized that he had forgotten the hair. Both from the head and the body. The man in front of him was completely and perfectly bald and hairless.

Chin let it pass. He didn't want to create a new human instead of this one just because of this little mistake. So he just made a not in himself that he should do this more frequently to get back his considerable expertise.

It had been quite a long time ago when he had last done this, after all.

"Wait here!" The command snapped out the man from his staggering in an instant. He straightened his back and silently nodded.

He had nothing else to do here, so Chin left the pond and the man standing in it behind. As he turned his back to the place, the world around him shifted and Chin's next step was taken in a bamboo forest. He found a large stone and sat down upon it. The few smaller spirit around him quickly scurried away, and he didn't pay much attention to them either.

He stared into the forest, and summoned his servants.

Taiko was the first to arrive, descending from the sky in the shape of a large flamingo.

"You look beautiful today, my dear," noted Chin with a gentle smile. Taiko was a powerful shapeshifter spirit, one of the last of her kind. She acted as Chin's emissary among Ba Sing Se's spirits, and occasionally, she was much more to him too.

Upon hearing the compliment, she bashfully turned away her head, watching Chin from the corner of her eye.

" _Welcome my master. I hope you have a good day. As I bring dire news._ " Chin raised his eyebrows. Taiko's choice of words was strange, to say at least.

"Speak," he said cautiously, expecting some sort of teasing from her. Taiko was a rather light-hearted spirit, and she wasn't afraid to pull even someone like Chin's leg.

" _Plague in your great city. The mortals' darkness spread wide. Spirits are in fear._ "

Chin's eyes widened as he realized why Taiko was speaking so oddly: she used Haikus. He let out a small, heartfelt laugh.

"Abandon worries, my most beloved subject, solution is nigh."

Flamingos couldn't blush, yet Taiko still managed to do it.

Their little game was interrupted by the arrival of Baraz. Even though he looked like an average City Watch officer, his powerful aura of pure light betrayed his true nature in the Spirit World. His kin had been created many eons ago, by no other the Raava herself. In a moment of desperation, the Bright Lady had wished herself an army to fight her dark brother Vaatu, so she had made thousands of spirit-soldiers to do her bidding. Her work had been maybe a little bit too effective: her army had ruthlessly eradicated Vaatu's dark spirits and even driven the Dark Master himself into hiding. Seeing the dread and destruction in their wake, Raava had grown frightened and eventually undone most of her soldiers. Only a handful of them had remained, running away from their creator and entering a deep slumber that ended when Chin had required their service. They were bound to his will now.

"You called me, my master?" He asked, then backed down a little when he noticed Taiko. "Is there something wrong?"

"I have a task for you and your people," replied Chin. He took a big breath, quickly re-evaluated his plan, and only continued when he felt that his decision was truly the best option. "The former Earth Empire soldiers are no longer welcomed in my city." His harsh voice sparked his servants' attention. "Tonight, I want you to find as many of these troublemakers as you can, and exterminate them."

With that, Chin condemned hundreds to a gruesome death. He felt a knob in his stomach growing, and a sour taste in his mouth as he did this, but at this point, he had no other choice. All he could do to ease his conscience was to remember that their sacrifice would not be in vain. At the cost of hundreds and thousands, he was saving millions of innocents - the unsuspecting citizens of his domain.

"Consider it done," Baraz said coldly. Chin could hear the callous determination in his voice.

"One more thing, Baraz," he added after a moment of consideration. "Do not reveal yourselves. Make it look like a mob war between these refugees. Also, don't involve your human companions either. I want to clean my city from this scum without stirring panic."

"Understood. Is the operation for this night only?"

Chin nodded.

"It is."

" _Is this wise?_ " Taiko's worried voice cut into Chin like a knife.

"No, it isn't, but it can't be helped."

The blunt answer didn't calm the shapeshifter.

" _The spirits won't like this._ "

"As I said, this won't take long. Urge patience. After this little incident, my city will enter an era of peace." _Hopefully_ , Chin added in himself. He knew that chances were slim to get away with this trouble so easily.

A massive white body of a dog-like spirit appeared from the forest. His eyes were glowing with sinister red, and his formidable muscles were tight from barely suppressed anger. He was Gelert, the father of the bloodhound-spirits who patrolled the streets of Ba Sing Se. They were Chin's eyes and ears… and his crushing hand when needed.

Taiko made a few steps away from the newcomer, and Baraz too became visibly unsettled. Gelert was an ancient spirit, older than even Raava and Vaatu. His power was vast, far surpassing the other two, being seconded only by Chin.

" _The timing for your summon was unfortunate, Ancient One,_ " he welcomed Chin. He indeed sounded rather angry. " _My sincerest apologies for my late arrival._ "

Chin and Baraz exchanged glances. They knew why Gelert was so upset, but neither of them was sure whether they should press the topic.

"I suppose the woman wasn't suitable for your needs…" noted Baraz diplomatically after a short, awkward silence.

Gelert turned towards him in rage, and flashed a vicious snarl.

" _She was entirely useless!_ " He moved closer to Baraz. Facing jaws the size of his own body, Baraz wisely stepped back to keep the distance from Gelert. " _The pod rejected her without draining a single drop of spiritual energy!_ "

"Then you should take her back to her cell," noted Chin. "You will get another one as soon as possible, I promise that."

" _Don't bother,_ " growled back Gelert. " _My daughters tore the woman into shreds and scattered her dying screams to the wind._ "

This startled both Taiko and Baraz, but Chin remained calm. It was clear that this matter needed his immediate attention.

He dismissed his two lesser servants with a hand wave. Taiko quickly flew away, being glad that she could finally leave Gelert's company. Baraz faded out too, and Chin saw in his eyes that he had already forgotten Gelert, focusing solely on the task at hand.

Chin stepped down from the stone.

"Come on Gelert, let me see what disturbs you so much."

This calmed down Gelert a little. They began to walk away together, and as Chin passed through a corner, the Spirit World around him changed once again. The barren mountains rose towards the sky steeply, breaking their ascend with large ledges from time to time. In one of these ledges just in front of Chin, a large tree grew, standing lonely in this desolate place. Its thick trunk carried the scars of uncountable millennia, and its top spread wide, though the gnarled branches had no leaves on them. Chin could see Gelert's daughters around the tree, their black bodies dotting the scene like a swarm of wood-worms.

As they moved closer, Chin also caught sight of the curled-up white spirit-bloodhounds lying deep amongst the roots, sleeping peacefully. They were Gelert's sons, forced to walk the Land of the Lost until their mother came back.

 _Their mother…_

" _I see I'm not the only one with distressing problems._ " Gelert's comment caught Chin unprepared. It was quite unusual from him to be so empathetic.

"It is just a small hindrance, nothing more."

Gelert stopped and by doing so, blocked Chin's path. He looked into his eyes, and from that Chin knew that his servant had expected a more sincere answer.

" _You wear a human's face, Ancient One, and it betrays your turmoil._ "

Chin sighed.

"The former soldiers of the Earth Empire have flooded my city and now they threaten it with darkness and violence. I don't want to hurt them for merely who they are, but I feel like my hands are bound in this matter. I've already sent Baraz and his people to kill as many as they can…" Chin took a small pause before he let the heaviest part out. "…and I reserve the same fate for all their kind."

Gelert flashed a vicious grin.

" _Don't pity the humans, Ancient One. You kill one and a hundred will take their place!_ "

"I would still avoid to take their lives, if I had the chance." Chin continued his walk as the world shaped to his will and a staircase rose from the ground, leading to the treetop. "Unfortunately, I don't."

" _Unfortunately for them._ "

"Unfortunately for both of us."

The bloodhound-spirit followed him on the stair instead of just simply leaping up.

" _I told you that you should have revealed yourself to the mortals._ "

This made Chin stop. He turned back to Gelert, and shot a stern gaze towards him.

"And I explained you that how it would have made things only worse. The mortals experience a great age of turmoil. Appearing in front of them in my turn form would have only fueled their confusion, and made them do stupid things. No, I had to remain undiscovered for them, and reclaim what was rightfully mine while wearing this mortal disguise."

" _It would have been amusing. The humans still remember your kind, so I can only imagine the blind devotion you would have received. The whole world would have fallen to its knees before you!_ "

Chin turned back with a disdainful snort, but didn't comment Gelert's vision. He, for one, had first-hand experiences about how humans and their zealotry could ruin everything. A long time ago, when he had left the city that had later become Ba Sing Se, he had asked the humans who had lived there to fend for his body. They had worshipped Chin for what he had been, and after he had disappeared, the various factions had waged a holy war for claiming his body – completely destroying it in the process.

When Chin had returned four years ago, his bodiless form had immediately sought out his body. All he could find had been a fragment roughly the size of the hand of his current body. This had been everything that had remained from his shell that had once carried a whole city and several thousand people.

The memory made Chin ground his teeth. It was truly a sad testament of humanity's nature. He had been counting with the worst ever since then, and he had been cursing himself that he hadn't done this before.

They reached the top, where the tree ended with a basin-like surface, wearing its branches like a crown around its bald head. Thick, snaky veins separated the two halves of the top. One half was empty, but it still carried the mark of a massive body lying there. Even more, it was red from fresh blood sprayed all over, with a touch of green in the shape of the barely recognizable remains of an Earth Kingdom stormtrooper uniform - all that was left from the poor woman who failed Gelert.

In the other half, a black spirit-bloodhound slept like the white ones below amongst the roots. She was Sarama, Gelert's mate and the mother of their pack. Around her body, a sea of flowers glittered in all the colors of a rainbow, their beautiful spectacle surrounding Sarama's body like a cradle.

Not far away from her, a viscous, greenly glowing orb pulsed, nested in one of the branches. It was a spirit-pod, used for draining humans for spiritual energy. Chin had brought this device here to awaken Samara, but the pod had rejected every human they had placed inside of it. Not even Chin knew the exact reason of this, but he theorized that the subject had lacked a certain spiritual quality that would have made their energies compatible with Samara's own.

Gelert walked to the still body of his love and gently nudged her with his nose.

" _Can't you finally reawaken her, just as you did with me?_ " he asked, with desperation in his voice.

Chin shook his head.

"You were only cursed, chained by the Lost in a dark dream. Sarama, however, was banished to their unforgiving land. Not even I have the power to go there. She must come back on her own. We can only help her by providing energy for the journey."

" _My daughters long for their brothers, so that they can hunt together again. Yet, as long as my beloved Sarama roams the Land of the Lost, my sons remain asleep. We can't break the balance._ "

This made Chin frown. He too wanted Sarama to return as soon as possible, so he can command the full might of the pack.

"Send some of your daughters with Baraz," he said eventually. "Maybe you will find a suitable human this night."

" _Maybe._ "

And with that, Gelert walked away and soon disappeared behind the edge. Chin shook his head again. Gelert was clearly slipping, as anger and despair haunted his heart and his thoughts. He felt sorry for him, but unlike with the soldiers threatening his city, he had no idea how he could help here.

So he closed his eye, and let the sea of flowers around Sarama detach itself and wrap his body. He felt the petals rushing through his clothes, their weight and their thickness. Just as his own weight.

* * *

When Chin opened his eyes, he was back in the Mortal World, in his meditation chamber. He just caught a flash of light from the garden as a temporal spirit portal opened and closed there, then the hand of a man appeared on one of the vines.

Chin smiled and left the room. He quickly gathered some clothes from his wardrobe then opened the door to the garden.

His creation sat on one of the vines, painfully massaging his side. He looked rather miserable, but it was understandable considering that this was the first time he truly experienced the Mortal World.

"Are you alright?" asked him Chin.

"Where am I?" asked back the man confusedly. He massaged his completely bald head. "Who am I?"

Chin stepped to him and looked into his eyes. He could see some muddiness in them, probably a slight side effect from the creation process. But it was fading away quickly, and soon the bright green eyes turned sharp and lively.

"Your name is Lee," said Chin thoughtfully. "You can remember the life I gave to you, right?"

Lee blinked a few times, but then his face brightened up.

"Yes, I can. I remember now!"

"Then you know your task. Go and fulfill it, then you are free to live a life you wish."

The man nodded then got dressed and left Chin's penthouse in a hurry. Chin watched as he disappeared behind the main door, then walked to the large window in the main hall and waited until he could see Lee leaving the building down below. Only when the nightly crowd swallowed him did Chin finally allow himself to take a break.

He flopped down into a nearby chair, quietly musing on the events of this day. He knew too well that he had set big things into motion, and he couldn't back down now.

For the third night from this one, the sad remnants of the Earth Empire army were going to die.


	5. Chapter 5: The Weapon

A large city like Ba Sing Se required immense amount of energy to maintain in myriad homes, facilities and infrastructure. Like an etheric gale, electricity raced across an unimaginably vast network of underground cables, popping up from the ground only to run into a transformer or a public plug.

On the surface, the installation that provided the electricity was barely larger than an average apartment at the border of the Northern Quadrant, but this building was just the tip of the iceberg. The Ba Sing Se Power Complex reached several kilometers deep into the crust, and sprawled almost three miles in every direction. It harnessed enormous geothermal and volcanic power, and converted it into electricity to feed the city's unappeasable hunger. Massive lava chambers and thermal reactors worked day and night with eerie humming and deep roars, converter batteries crackled, and pumps the size of smaller skyscrapers hissed with tormented voices. The staff was relatively small, so the clean and well-lit tunnels always felt abandoned, further fueling the awe an unsuspecting visitor might feel.

Though he had been overseeing it since its construction, Chin still couldn't help but feel a deep admiration while walking in this shrine of human ingenuity. He often stopped at the observation windows to watch the intricate machinery working tirelessly on the other side or the lava rise and sink at the whim of the central control system.

Deep in the heart of the power plant, there was a place that served a whole different function than abating the city's hunger. Located in the largest lava chamber, the Obsidian Dragon teahouse was more akin to a place for a good conversation over a fine cup of tea, just like its sister-establishment on the surface, the Jasmine Dragon.

As Chin stepped into the elevator that would take him to the teahouse, another person slipped next to him. His City Watch uniform was almost caught by the closing door, but his unnatural speed saved him this embarrassment.

Baraz looked like a mess. The left half of his face was bright red from a burnt scar, and his left forearm was fully bandaged. It was clear that he had had his hands full last night with the task Chin had given to him and his people.

"How many?" asked Chin, pushing the conversation right to the point.

"Seven-hundred and ninety-two. Estimated two-third of the total amount of possible targets."

Chin let out a heavy sight. By his command, almost eight-hundred people had perished under a single night. Men and women whose only sin had been their stubborn loyalty to a fallen cause.

"Any incidents?"

"Not from us."

The odd answer and the following awkward silence made Chin frown.

"What happened?"

"The fugitives had a secret Earth Empire military depot under their control in the eastern Agriskirt. They had mecha-suits, lots of them. We could have only engaged them in a full-scale pitched battle, but I chose to not risk getting caught and ordered a withdrawal." Baraz's voice turned bitter, echoing a distant, barely suppressed regret. "That was when Gelert showed up. He wasn't so troubled about uncovering our operation, and charged in, all alone." The spirit-soldier hissed up as he relived the scene. Chin could easily imagine that it wasn't pretty, not even for a hardened warrior like Baraz. "He tore those humans into pieces, all of them. The mecha-suits couldn't even touch him. It was horrifying! I have never seen Gelert like this before!"

"He is under a lot of pressure nowadays," explained Chin calmly. "Sarama, his mate, is still asleep, and I don't think that we have much time to awaken her. If he can't find a human with a proper spiritual imprint soon, then I'm afraid Sarama's current state becomes permanent and irreversible."

"I have six City Watch humans from the clean-up team in hospital because the scene Gelert left behind was too much for them."

Chin massaged his head. This was really a little bit too much from Gelert, but he had better things to do now than reprimand his spirit-servant. So he just made a reminder to keep a close eye on Gelert and calculate with his anger.

"Anything else?"

"Like it isn't enough…" grumbled Baraz, but then he handed a dossier to Chin. The files in it were about two humans: a man called Kalden and his sister Hoshi. "These two witnessed an attack and are still alive."

This was actually something Chin was prepared for. No matter how good Baraz and his people were, they were not infallible. Though, as he repeated his conversation with Baraz so far in his mind, he found a key component that didn't fit.

"You said that you hadn't caused any incidents."

"We didn't. Gelert's daughters took them away, and released them in the Western Quadrant."

Chin's heart leaped in his chest, and his vision was blurred by a crimson haze. The sudden surge of anger turned his face red, and the world around him buckled as he involuntary let his emotions control a tiny fraction of his power. The steel walls of the elevator glowed up in a blue light, and the door-guard twisted and turned as thorns and spikes started to grow on its bars.

It took only a few seconds for Chin to regain his composure, but the damage was already done: the elevator was saturated with Chin's anger, its once blank grey insides now a blue painting of barbed vines and sharp geometrical shapes. The door-guard itself now looked more like a screen of thick barbed wire.

Chin's reminder quickly changed from watching Gelert to punish him severely as soon as possible.

"A-Ancient One?" Baraz's voice was meek, and radiated pure fear. Being a spirit himself, he probably got the full picture of what Chin had felt in that moment.

"It's alright Baraz, sorry." Chin's calmness eased his servant's mood instantly. "Gelert is not the only one who is under a lot of pressure."

He handed back the dossier to Baraz and stopped the elevator just one level above the Obsidian Dragon.

"I will walk from here." He looked through the elevator. It was in a sorry shape, but Chin couldn't help it right now. "Put this elevator out of order. Don't let any human enter it until it changes back." Baraz nodded, but he still seemed uneasy. "Oh, and I wish you a speedy recover! I'm going to need you and your people soon."

This finally snapped Baraz out of his daze. He lifted up his arm to show that it was fine.

"Officially, I had a car accident last night," he explained quickly. Then the elevator doors closed, leaving Chin alone with his thoughts.

* * *

The Obsidian Dragon received its name from the black, ultra-durable alloy that protected it from the extreme heat and pressure that ravaged the lava chamber. The whole building was black, both inside and out. The main structure reached out from the chamber's upper wall section like some sort of metal tinder. Only the bottom of the ellipse-shaped serving area broke the blackness, as large, reinforced windows were set into the floor and gave a view of the lava below.

At this early hour, Chin could only find three guests and the staff here, and the emptiness was more than perfect for him. He didn't want prying eyes or unsuspecting people eavesdropping. The staff was trustworthy in this matter, and the person he was looking for was sitting on the opposite end of the serving area from the other two.

Chin wasted no time in walking over to this woman and sitting down to face her. She was in her early thirties, a typical daughter of the Earth Nation with dark brown hair worn in a tight bun, large hazel eyes, and a simple beauty to borrow. Her modest but fashionable clothes bore the symbols of Unity Corps, the largest and most powerful corporation of Ba Sing Se.

"You look terrible today, governor," she welcomed him gleefully. "Did you have a bad night?"

"Good morning to you too, Jing."

His elusive answer just sparked the woman's interest.

"I heard that others had had a very bad night too. A mob war between those fugitives! How horrifying!" Her affected consternation didn't last long though, and she soon burst out in a blood-curdling laughter. "Of course, nobody is going to miss those troublemakers! I only hope that they will kill each other quickly and peacefully!"

"Please Jing, we are talking about people here."

Chin's words only widened her smile.

"I reserve no compassion to that degenerate filth, and I advise you to do the same. They don't deserve our precious attention."

This made Chin remember Gelert's words about how he shouldn't concern himself with the death of humans. Hearing the same from a human was a little more disturbing though.

A waitress brought them tea, and this put a halt to their conversation. For a good ten minutes, they were just drinking their tea in solemn silence. They only continued when their cups became empty.

"This city cannot bear their kind any longer," began Chin. Even though he had just drank his tea, his lips were already drying up. It was the same feeling he had had when he had sent Baraz to kill those people last night. He was already responsible for the death of hundreds, yet, to his great surprise, the knowledge didn't make the next step any easier for him.

If anything, he felt even worse now. Not just about the death he was about to unleash, but also about the fact that he was doing it for the second time.

"Why, I must agree! It is about time for you to do something about it. If I can be of any help, just say it."

Jing's enthusiasm was sickening. Chin saw the light of malevolence dancing in her eyes, as she knew exactly what he wanted from her.

"I need a weapon." The words rolled down from Chin's tongue heavily, like a loose rock from the mountainside that would fall to the unsuspecting village below. "Something I can use to dispatch those men and women without causing any harm in the city."

The smile changed into a terrifying grin on Jing's face.

"Oh, I knew you would ask for such a thing. I even prepared a little… presentation."

"Care to explain?"

Jing stretched her limbs like a satisfied cat. She bathed in Chin's attention for a long moment, then leaned closer to him to share her plan.

"Unity Corps was founded by Kuvira to supplement her war effort." Chin nodded. This was quite well-known. "We never really got anything serious, only developing and manufacturing ordinary pieces of equipment like those mecha-suits and the trains. However, after Kuvira conquered Zaofu, she tasked us to create a weapon she could have used to conquer Republic City. A weapon that is effective in dense environment and causes minimal collateral damage."

"That's exactly what I need too," noted Chin. The proposal was good so far, but he didn't like where it was heading.

"Her second-in-command, Bataar, handed us a great deal of information concerning the spirit weapon he was working on. It caught our imagination, and even though we couldn't produce a weapon for her eventual attack on Republic City, we never dropped the development, not even after Kuvira's fall. We are actually making much progress with it."

"A spirit weapon you say?" Chin's skeptical tone was hard to miss, but at this point Jing was all fired up from her own idea so she didn't notice it.

"Exactly! A spirit weapon that seeks out the enemy and destroys them with utmost efficiency!" Her squeal made every head in the teahouse turn towards them. "Come on Chin, you must see it! It is phenomenal! You wouldn't even believe what my scientists can do with that thing!"

"I'm afraid I would…"

Jing jumped up from her seat and grabbed Chin's arm to drag him away. Her eagerness was a little bit scary, but Chin was preparing for the very worst at this moment. Killing humans was one thing, but unleashing a spiritual weapon of mass destruction on his city was another.

They left the place in a hurry, and soon they were on their way to the Unity Corps headquarters building. It wasn't far away from the entrance of the power plant, and Chin barely had time to rethink his decision before he found himself in an underground weapon bunker.

As a research assistant led him through a thick platinum door, he sensed a great spiritual disturbance coming from the containers in the next chamber. Something was trapped in those bulky metal cylinders, and whatever it was, its primitive hunger was strong enough to distort the spiritual energies flowing around the place. Chin felt like moving through a river, with thirsty people in cages on the shores – their hands could just reach the water, but it wasn't enough. Their dry throats made their cries quiet and incomprehensible, but Chin could still hear them.

He was glad to leave this haunted chamber, but the next room was maybe even worse.

It was a testing chamber, with all sorts of sensors and similar scientific devices encircling a large glass cube. There were tubes attached to this prison, leading back to the storage chamber.

In this cube, a young man wearing an Earth Empire uniform sat idly in one corner, and a small potato-shaped spirit in the other. When they noticed then new arrivals, they stood up and looked through the group, especially Chin.

"Commander Chin!" shouted the man suddenly, his poor expressions improving quickly as he watched Chin approach. "These people abducted me! I did nothing wrong! They keep me here against my will! Please, can you tell them to let me free?"

"Let me go!" whimpered the potato-spirit. Unlike the humans in the room, she could see what Chin really was, and from that, she knew that something bad was coming.

"You both stay where you are!" snapped Jing as she got into a white lab coat. "Don't disappoint us, and then maybe I'll make you suffer only a bit more than needed!"

This offer immediately melted the soldier's smile. "C-Commander?" he stuttered as he pushed himself against the glass wall. "Please, Commander, help me!" Tears started to roll down from his eyes as he hit the wall with his fist. "I'm a soldier of the Earth Empire! You can't leave me like this, Commander!"

Chin walked to the glass prison, and knocked it a few times, testing its thickness.

"Quite a safety measure you have here Jing," he noted casually. "I was expecting something a little more... subtle."

Jing just smiled at him and shrugged.

"Commence the test!" she commanded the scientists, and the chamber came to life as all sorts of machinery was activated.

Chin could hear an ominous crackling and a low humming, followed by a short hiss from the storage chamber behind them. He felt the starving entity from the containers approaching through the pipes, and the room fell into a strange, unnatural silence as it had arrived.

For a short moment, his eyes met with the doomed soldier's. The desperation and terror pouring from the poor man was staggering, but Chin hardened himself and didn't tell Jing to stop. His lips, however, formed a silent word:

" _Sorry."_

The device above the cube shook as an unrelenting force passed through it and found its way to the tubes that led right to the two victims.

A patch of gas appeared from the tubes. It was colored purple and orange, glowing in a dazzling spectacle. There was some confidence in it movement, as it slowly left the tubes and started to spread around the top of the cube. Chin could feel a sentience in that small gas cloud. It was a nascent spirit, powerless and barely conscious, driven by its terrible hunger.

The potato-spirit was the first to break. She unleashed a strange cry that was half a scream and half a howl, then her skin turned from pale green to deep purple, and her eyes glowed up in malevolent red. Assuming her dark form was unwise though, as she just drew the gas-spirit's attention to herself. The cloud swooped down, enveloping the enraged potato-spirit with its immaterial form in the blink of an eye. She tried to fight back, but to no avail; her freshly sprouted claws and fangs only disturbed the gas but couldn't harm it. Her body twitched, then rose into the air.

Chin's eyes widened as he watched the potato-spirit simply dissolving in the gas. As her body was losing size, the gas grew bigger and denser, and its lingering sentience became stronger. It quelled its hunger with spiritual energy, and with that, it also became more powerful.

The soldier took these turn of events very badly. He collapsed to the ground, and began to whimper pathetically. When the gas-spirit turned towards him, he crawled back a little, but otherwise he just gave up.

In return, he didn't suffer. The gas rushed into his mouth and nose with the same incredible speed it had showed against the potato-spirit. It disappeared completely in the soldier's body, and only a moment later the man shuddered and died without a single cry of pain. With his last breath, the gas-spirit also returned, now being almost ten times bigger when it entered the cube.

"Isn't it wonderful?" commented Jing. Her smile was eerily wide. "This weapon is the epitome of efficiency! We just call it the 'Annihilator Gas'. It seeks out and kills everyone, regardless of cover or protective measures. Gas masks are useless against it, and as you could see, being a spirit won't help either! It leaves no messy carcasses behind, and eliminates its targets with maximum discretion! This is just exactly what you need, isn't it?"

This might have been true. Chin placed his hand on the glass and the gas-spirit slid to him, pressing its form against the wall. It could feel Chin's tremendous power and yearned to feast on it the same way it had consumed the potato-spirit and the soldier. The gas cloud began to swirl impatiently as the glass proved to be an impenetrable barrier, and its glow intensified from the excitement.

Chin gave the gas-spirit a little demonstration of true power. Even though his human body greatly limited his performance, the three intersecting circles that appeared under his palm on the glass still carried the distant imprint of his vast spiritual energies.

This little display took the gas-spirit aback. It reacted surprisingly quickly though, and dipped to the floor as a sign of submission.

"Hey… what was that?" Jing stepped to Chin and touched the circles. "I didn't know that it could do this!"

"You know very little, Jing. This 'Annihilator Gas' of yours is a spirit."

"Ah, yes! That's our secret! It self-replicates by draining spirit energy from its victims… Makes industrial production so much easier! It is also fairly intelligent and can be conditioned to attack people with a specific set of qualities." She returned to the main control panel, and picked up a hand-held switch from it. "That glass is specifically made to contain it, so we are safe here!"

The words 'industrial production' and 'condition' made Chin feel uneasy. He shuddered to imagine what Jing meant with them.

He walked round the cube, and the spirit-gas followed him obediently. Even with the energies it had recently consumed, it was still too weak to develop into a proper spirit. For Chin, it was like an insect for a human – an inferior being. However, an insect couldn't turn into a human, but this cloud of gas could become a fully developed spirit, and a fairly powerful one for that. It was just a question of energy, and maybe a little external help.

The thought that he could provide it both by feeding the Earth Empire ex-soldiers into the gas was strangely appeasing for Chin. A thousand humans for a spirit sounded like a fair exchange after all, and the gas-spirit would provide those poor souls a swift and quiet death.

An important detail was still missing though.

"How do you control it?"

Chin's question made Jing grin.

"Well, thing is, we don't!"

And with that, she turned the switch in her hand.

A purple lightning cracked through the cube, and Chin had to leap back or the negative spirit energies would have burnt through the glass to reach him. The gas-spirit released a piercing wail as the lightning tore into it and disintegrated its form. Chin watched with horror as the surge of negative spirit energy lashed into the gas-spirit over and over again until it was completely obliterated.

Jing's gleeful laughter as she destroyed her spirit weapon was just slightly more upsetting.

It took a good minute until the lightning faded out, and the glass cube was empty sans the soldier's dead body.

"You should have warned me."

Chin's cold voice failed to find a grip on Jing, as she just chuckled and went back to the control panel to check the readings. Unbeknownst to her, that lightning had almost caused disaster: Chin already felt troubled and fuming because of this Earth Empire soldier situation, and the negative energy would have certainly pushed him over the edge; and Chin's dark form was leagues more unpleasant than the potato-spirit's.

"So, we have another container of Annihilator Gas, and we can produce more from that over time. Give us a year and there will be enough to gas every problematic area in the city." Jing scratched her chin as she reconsidered her proposed plan. "You know what, scratch it! Give us four months, and you will have the necessary quantity!"

"That one container will be enough. I want to lure all the soldiers to one place, then release your weapon there to kill them all at once. More importantly, I want to do this within the next two days."

Jing laughed, her mirth sweeping through the room like a sinister ghost. She definitely liked Chin's plan.

"Good! Good! We have an installation that is going to be perfect for this occasion!"

"Another thing: please, don't replicate this gas."

This cut Jing's laughter in half. The woman's bright expressions immediately turned into a frown.

"What are you saying again?" she snapped. "We cannot create more Annihilator Gas from nothing! If you use the container in your little action, then this project is as good as dead!"

Chin stepped to Jing and looked deeply into her eyes. The woman stood her ground for first, but her determination quickly vanished under Chin's unflinching gaze.

"That's exactly what I want," he said calmly, so that Jing could fully understand his intention. "I don't want any accidents in my city with this gas. It will be used once, then never again. Your corporation will be fairly compensated. I will personally see it through."

Of course, money was not the real problem here. Jing wanted to keep the weapon to use it later or sell it to the highest bidder. She was seemingly oblivious to the hazards this spirit-gas carried, and wouldn't refrain from treating it just as irresponsibly as her kind usually did.

Chin on the other hand wanted this weapon to be free from human influence. He had given humanity a chance to handle responsibility, and they had failed his trust – he had no intention of making the same mistake again.

Jing hissed up and turned away.

"Okay, sheesh, you are the governor, so you can force me to surrender the Annihilator Gas anyway…" She probably rued her decision to show Chin the spirit-gas, or at least she sounded pretty bitter. "I will make the arrangements. You will have your weapon and a properly equipped place to unleash it."

"Thank you Jing."

The woman just murmured something under her breath and then walked away. Chin felt a little bad for her as being exploited like this was not a pleasant experience by human standards.

But, at the end of the day, it was definitely worth it. Chin now had the means to put a satisfying end to the sad legacy of the Earth Empire, and in the meantime, bless a spirit with a better future.

Things were truly going very well for him. The progress almost cheered him up, but then he realized that with every step he took, he was just digging a grave for hundreds of humans.


	6. Chapter 6: The Morning

Their house was considered average by the city's standards for a second-floor apartment, but it would be a very neat home in Republic City. The living room was spacious, with space for a large, comfortable couch, a richly decorated coffee table in front of it, and two closets discreetly built into the walls. They had their private bedrooms, a spare guest room, a well-equipped kitchen and a quite luxurious bathroom with marble wall tiles.

When they moved in, neither Hoshi, nor Kalden could believe that they had gained entry to this dream. When they had woken up this morning in a park, all messed up and covered with bruises, they felt the same reservation about their dream turning into a nightmare.

Now, hiding with his sister behind the couch in the living room, Kalden truly wondered about how things could become even worse.

"City Watch! Open the door!" came the harsh demand from the outside. "Anyone in there? Open the door!"

He saw the silhouettes through the front window: five men in City Watch uniforms standing in front of their door or trying to peak through the thick curtain. They had been there for almost half hour now.

The bell in the house rang up as it had many times before, its sharp voice like malicious laughter for the troubled siblings. A series of impatient knocks on the door made the creeping danger even harder to miss.

"Open the door please! We know you are in there! If you don't open the door, we are going to break in!"

This startled Hoshi, but Kalden hushed her.

"Don't worry," he whispered. "They are bluffing. It is standard police procedure."

Or at least it was in the Republic City Police Force. Kalden himself had partaken in many such fake break-ins when he had been with the Metalbender Task Force.

A strong kick almost smashed the door. The loud crack made Kalden reconsider his prognosis for a moment, but it wasn't enough to break his self-control. It did put Hoshi to the edge though: the girl shuddered and her muscles stiffened as she readied herself for the oncoming fight.

The following silence was terrible to bear. For a seemingly unending moment, the officers outside remained still and quiet as they were waiting for a reaction. Unfortunately for them, their patience was futile.

"They are not here." The officer sounded embarrassed. This wasn't another bluff to lure them out. "Let's move on and ask around. Maybe someone has seen them."

The City Watch left just as unceremoniously as they had arrived. Their silhouettes disappeared in the atrium and soon their voices too faded away.

Hoshi took a breather and massaged her belly with a pained grimace. This stress she had experienced was taking its toll on the baby, Kalden could see it on her. She had a sprained ankle and an ugly bruise on her face from last night, and even though it was nothing compared to Kalden's cracked ribs and lingering concussion, she wasn't even half as tough as her brother, especially now.

Kalden wrapped his arms around her.

"Hey, it's gonna be alright. Hayato and the others are probably on their way here already. They will cook up something and take you somewhere safe."

"They should hurry up then, because I'm feeling pretty messed up…"

Just as she said this, a lonely silhouette slipped to their door and knocked on it thrice in quick succession. Whoever he was, he didn't wait for an answer, and after some jingling, he simply opened the door.

There was only one other person in this city who had a key for their door.

"Seiwon!" cried out Hoshi as she hurried to the young man in the door. Seeing her difficulty with walking, he quickly went to meet her. They finally threw themselves into each other's arms in the middle of the living room.

Kalden watched the scene with a steadily increasing nausea. Seiwon was Hoshi's boyfriend and the father of her child, a lanky man with sharp features and long, shaggy hair. Unlike his fellow ex-comrades, he didn't wear a full Earth Empire uniform, only the shirt, carefully hidden under a brown vest.

"Hey babe… Big-bro-in-law…" he welcomed them with his usual sleazy style and kissed Hoshi. "What's the holdup? You look hurt!"

"It's nothing," she said, but Seiwon's attention was already somewhere else. "We just ran into a little trouble last night."

"Okay, no harm no foul!" Seiwon sneaked out from Hoshi's hug and walked to the kitchen. "Is there something to eat? I'm starving!"

Hoshi limped to him and began to prepare a breakfast for her boyfriend. Her sincere smile made the whole situation even more inappropriate than usual for Kalden, but he steeled himself and did not make a comment. It would have been a waste of words anyway.

"I have some good news for everyone!" As he gobbled up the food in front of him, Seiwon's voice became fast and lively. "I've got a job in a hydro farm! Good ol' Seiwon is getting some sweet money!"

"That's awesome! We can finally start a life together!"

Kalden didn't share Hoshi's optimism, but he kept his opinion for himself.

"Slow down girl, they don't hire me for the director's chair! I'm gonna' have enough money to set my life straight but not much more." Seeing Hoshi's good mood melting away upon hearing this, Seiwon lovingly put his arms around her and flashed a reassuring smile. "Anyway, that wage wouldn't be enough to support our little fellow. The sad truth is, you are better off with Kalden."

This was a fairly good excuse, but Kalden knew the real reason behind Seiwon's unwillingness, and it had little to do with money.

"Did you finally get over with the other ex-soldiers?" spat out Kalden suddenly. "Is that why you got that job?"

Seiwon sighed, and clearly made a valiant effort to make up a good answer.

"Look, dude, it is not like you can just shake off those guys. Anyway, we are pretty close, you know." He brought out a leaflet from his pocket and showed it to Hoshi and Kalden. It was one of their propaganda leaflets. "Commander Chin is with us! Last night, a guy popped up in our hideout and promised us all sorts of cool stuff. Like, the big man is really up to the task! He wants to rally us and put that jerk Wu and the Avatar in their place! There will be a huge meeting in two days and everything!"

Hoshi and Kalden exchanged terrified glances. The leaflet was just propaganda of course, but they had no idea who this herald could have been.

"Tell me about this guy." inquired Hoshi. "Is he an Earth Empire sympathizer too?"

"Nah… He was really sleek, looked more like one of those super-spiritual guys with being bald and stuff. Dude knew how to speak, and showed that jerk Ogashi some pretty darn sweet earthbending, too, when he tried to throw him out. Dunno, I wasn't listening in the first row if you know what I mean. When he left, everyone was all fired up and wanted to wreck things, so you can imagine."

His shabby description didn't fit anyone the siblings knew.

There was a detail Kalden couldn't miss though.

"Were you gambling again Seiwon?" The question caught the young man flat-footed, so Kalden decided to push the matter. "Is that why you didn't check that guy?"

Seiwon's embarrassed laughter said more than a thousand words.

"Look, gotta' put some cash on the cards man!"

"What about the job? Is it even real?"

"He-e-e-ey… It's a job. Maybe it isn't super-duper serious anymore as I can ride to glory with Commander Chin, but beating some order into those lawless lands out there is better than tending crops, right?"

Kalden was of a different opinion, and it showed on his face. Feeling the weight of the situation, Seiwon chose a quick retreat.

"Come on girl, the air is getting a little bit hostile here," he said as he dragged Hoshi out of the house. His smile was as disarming as a snarl from a bloodhound-spirit. "Let's continue our small-talk outside, shall we?"

Mesmerized by love, Hoshi followed him without hesitation; only turning back from the door to shoot a disapproving gaze back to Kalden.

He just shrugged and flopped down to the couch. The only reason why he didn't throw out Seiwon was his aching head. The world was one, big, dizzy blur, like his eyes were soup stirred by an overenthusiastic cook. So Kalden just threw his head back, and enjoyed the silence that remained with him in the house.


	7. Chapter 7: The Conspiracy

Zheng, Ting, and Lien snatched him from the middle of a class, and Hayato didn't even have the opportunity to apologize to his frightened students before the three pulled him out of the amphitheater. They left the Ba Sing Se University in great hurry, informing Hayato about the situation only when they were already in the car and on their way to the Western Quadrant.

It looked like they had kicked the vulturewasp nest yesterday with their little meeting with Chin. According to Zheng, Chin had changed his mind. There was a guy visiting the hideouts of the former Earth Empire soldiers, telling them that Chin would raise an army from their ranks and reenact Kuvira's campaign by uniting the warring Earth States into a single Earth Empire again. None of the three had met this person yet, but they had solid word on him appearing in their recently evacuated headquarters at the Outer Wall.

Lien also told Hayato that there had been a huge activity around the Unity Corps depots all morning. She had seen all sorts of equipment transported from a weapon bunker to an airship hangar - clearly a sign of war preparations.

Ting brought slightly graver news: sensing their dreams finally coming true, the ex-soldiers had purged their ranks last night, and several hideouts had been razed, their occupants killed. This was terrible, but not entirely unexpected; the pressure building up in these men and women since Kuvira's fall was just asking for a violent outburst. Chin had seen it, and this was probably the reason why he had changed his mind.

By the time their car turned into the parking lot of an apartment complex in the Western Quadrant, Hayato was sure that their efforts to help the ex-soldiers had not been in vain. Seven months ago, he had founded this movement from a bunch of enthusiastic sympathizers and idealist students, and now he was walking through the gate of well-deserved success.

Chin's Army was going to become a reality.

They still had a loose end though. Zheng had gotten the message during the morning. Two of their activists had been caught in the surge of violence, and they had witnessed something they definitely shouldn't. Hoshi and Kalden were good people, and Hayato had no reason to question their words, but their message was just as interesting as nonsensical – definitely worth investigating.

As they got out of the car, Hayato made a quick headcount for himself, in case things would go awry. Zheng and Ting were former Earth Empire soldiers, part of the lucky few who had found a way back to a normal life. These two young men had the military experience and the metalbending for a good fight, but nothing extraordinary. Lien was a non-bender and just an average young university student in all respects, but she was quite brawny for a girl so maybe she wouldn't be a burden, either. Hayato himself was in a good shape for an old man, and he was a decent firebender too – unfortunately he had skipped military service while was with the Fire Nation, and hadn't gained any combat experience since then either as a professor of the Ba Sing Se University.

These were rather poor odds, but they had a bunch of other activists on their way.

"Hey, look, isn't that Hoshi?" Lien's voice cut Hayato's chain of thoughts in half. "Who is that guy with her?"

As Hayato turned his head to the left where Lien was pointing, he saw a tall man standing in front of a newsstand and a woman with him. The woman was indeed Hoshi, Hayato easily recognized her from her swollen belly. She was in a rather bad shape: the ugly bruise on her left face and the way she was leaning against the newsstand to spare her sprained ankle were signs of a rough night.

The man, however, was unfamiliar. He looked like a beggar or maybe a vagabond.

"He is Seiwon, Hoshi's boyfriend," noted Ting. "He is a former Earth Empire soldier, a rather unsuccessful one for that. Just a petty slacker and gambler, don't mind him if you don't have to."

Hayato could easily see the 'gambler' part: there was a large pile of used up raffle tickets next to Seiwon, and he was busy trying another one.

As they approached the couple, Hayato could hear their conversation, too, another valuable insight into what Ting had meant.

"Come on, two cabbages and one treasure chest?!" cried Seiwon dramatically as he finished his ticket. "That's almost two-thousand Yuans!"

"Almost…" added the newsvendor with a smile. "But as it now stands, it is nothing!"

"This is my lucky day! I feel it in the air!" Seiwon scrapped the ticket and threw it to the pile. Then he turned to the silently watching Hoshi. "Can you buy me more of these tickets? I'm so close! The next one is going to make me rich for sure!"

Hoshi's embarrassed smile was a clear indicator of what she thought, but she eventually bought four more tickets.

The grateful expression she had when Hayato and the others approached them was beyond description.

"Hi, Hoshi…" Zheng greeted her, and after a quick size-up he left it right there, ignoring Seiwon altogether. "What are you doing here?"

The question took Hoshi a little bit unprepared. She looked around with puzzlement written all over her face, like she suddenly became unsure where she was standing at the moment.

"Uhmmm… I live here?"

"I mean, what are you doing on the street where everyone can see you?"

This finally opened Hoshi's eyes to her current situation. She looked around again, checking the street in panic, but it was empty. Fortunately for her, the City Watch avoided this neighborhood.

"Let's go inside," Hayato proposed as he escorted Hoshi away. "We are not safe here."

His companions nodded and left for the apartment complex. Hayato and Hoshi followed them closely, and Seiwon closed the line without saying a word.

As they took the stairs, Lien and Ting quickened their steps and their moves became stiffer, as if they were sensing danger.

"We are being watched," Zheng explained before Hayato could inquire.

Hoshi gasped for air, and her face turned chalk-white.

"Kalden! We left him alone!" she squeaked. "Hurry up, he could be in danger!"

Lien reached the door to their house first and flung open the door with the same momentum. She rushed in, but popped back up only a moment later to sign that the place is safe. Ting quickly took the opportunity to push the bunch through the door and close it shut behind them.

Hayato could easily imagine how subtle their entry could have been. If the neighbors had any sense, then they would call the City Watch right away. Luckily, at least Kalden didn't mind them at all as he was snorting peacefully on the couch in the middle of the living room.

Hoshi ran to him as soon as she could, and shook him out of his sleep. The others took a seat around them, Hayato himself choosing an armchair right next to the siblings.

"We don't have much time here, so let's jump to the point," Ting started unceremoniously. He drew forth a tattered piece of paper from his pouch and threw it to the coffee table lying in front of the couch. "I found this message from you this morning at one of our communications drop off points. It says that last night, a group of, and I quote here, 'humanoid spirits that glow white and their limbs end in spikes' attacked you while you were meeting with a group of ex-soldiers. These spirits then proceeded to slaughter all the soldiers, including their leader, who was also tortured. The spirits were accompanied by two bloodhound-spirits who…" Ting scratched his head as he reached the most unbelievable part. "Who saved you two from these spirits, then brought you to a park in the Western Quadrant."

"Yes, that's pretty much it," admitted Kalden faintly. "Those bloodhound-spirits also did something with Hoshi… Like, she had this weird dream… Please, Hoshi, tell them!"

"When the spirit-bloodhounds took us away, I fainted," Hoshi started. Hayato drew closer, but the others listened to her with varying degrees of skepticism. "And I had this… vision. I was in an empty, barren plateau. It was very misty too. I felt lost, like I had been there for a very long time, without the chance to leave. Then I looked down and noticed that I was in the body of a bloodhound-spirit!"

"Wow, that's bizarre!" interrupted Zheng with a scornful whistle, but Hayato hushed him.

"So, the mist started to whirl, and took up the form of another bloodhound-spirit wearing some sort of skin-tight metal armor. The mist changed again, and the armored bloodhound-spirit turned into Kalden!" Her voice rose, and Hayato caught a strange flash in her eyes. He couldn't decide whether it was insanity or not. "Then my baby kicked and I woke up!"

A long, awkward silence befell on the room.

"Huh, a wild story!" Seiwon's words met only speechless agreement from Lien, Ting and Zheng. He took this as an encouragement and sat down to the couch next to Kalden, taking Hoshi with him. "You see dear, you don't have to worry." He gently tapped Hoshi's belly. "Family is protecting you even in your nightmares! Even if you find yourself in an ugly place and in a bloodhound-spirit's body, our little fellow is going to be right there to wake you up!"

"Come on, this is sheer insanity!" Zheng picked up Kalden's message from the table and theatrically tore it into pieces. "You two were just knocked out and had a weird dream!"

"The _same_ dream?" retorted Kalden, but Zheng just shrugged. "You have to believe us!" He turned around, but could only see doubt on the others' faces.

"Look, Kalden, it isn't that we don't believe you," Ting noted thoughtfully. His calm voice blunted the edge of the escalating conflict, though Hayato felt the affectation in it. "But we cannot act without some sort of hard evidence."

"Evidence?!" Kalden took down his shirt, revealing the large bruises on his chest. They were undoubtedly shaped by a massive jaw. Hayato clearly saw the marks of the large fangs and the sore red skin around them. The professor was no doctor, but he could easily imagine that the latter was some sort of infection from animal saliva. "Here is your evidence!"

His outburst was rewarded with a long silence. Not even Zheng had anything to say.

"I'm not making this up out of whim," Kalden continued as he put his shirt back. "Those spirits were real. They massacred the soldiers, and if not for the spirit-bloodhounds, they would have killed me and Hoshi too. Worse still, they masqueraded as City Watch officers! We must warn everyone!"

Ting shook his head and let out a heavy sigh.

"It is too late. Yours was not the only problematic hideout last night. Dozens of others were attacked, hundreds died."

"This definitely requires further investigation," Hayato put in. His first words since they had entered this house immediately drew attention, and the others turned towards him as one. "However, there is one thing we can uncover even now. Kalden, you said that the spirits wore the bodies of City Watch officers. Can you describe these human shells? How did they look?"

This took Kalden a little bit unprepared. He massaged his head, then looked at Hoshi with a worrying expression. The young woman nodded, but her hesitation to do so was hard to miss.

"Well, there was this leader guy…" began Kalden. His wavering voice was definitely not the result of a hazy memory. "We kinda' know him, I mean, I couldn't recognize him there, but it hit me really hard this morning… When I looked into the news, and his face was in the front page…" He bit his lip as Zheng picked up the newspaper from the table and checked the small article in the bottom corner.

Hayato couldn't see the picture, only Zheng's face turning red.

"You don't say... Kalden, this is pure madness!"

"He was Baraz, the Commander of the City Watch!" Hoshi's cry cut into the already stressed atmosphere like a scissor into a veil and struck everyone in the room speechless.

"Baraz had a car accident last night." Ting walked to Zheng and took the newspaper from him. "We all know how he likes cars and racing, so this sounds alright."

"We also know how damn good a driver he is," added Lien as she was watching the outside through the front window. "The accident could be a cover-up."

"Maybe it was just a trick. A deception, if you like." Hayato tried to make the most reasonable explanation, and the others were seemingly eager to accept it. "It is time to re-evaluate our plans. The attack on the hideouts and the bloodhound-spirits' strange behavior must be two different things if Kalden's story is right. The spirits wanted to kill him and Hoshi, yet the bloodhound-spirits prevented this – the stakes were not corresponding, so they played their own games."

"Then why were the bloodhound-spirits even there?" asked Ting.

"Coincidence, or maybe they were drawn to the violence," Zheng answered instead of the professor. It was good to see these two slowly understanding the situation. "Or maybe they had been watching Hoshi for some time."

This visibly startled Hoshi. The possibility of those monsters keeping an eye on her for whatever reason was definitely an uncomfortable idea, Hayato could agree.

"I won't let them hurt Hoshi, I can promise you that!" hissed Kalden, but his poor condition blunted his intention. Technically, he had already failed to protect his sister from the bloodhound-spirits, and Hayato had no illusions about the young man's future chances, especially now, with those injuries.

"I'm with ya' buddy!" added Seiwon with badly affected enthusiasm. "Ain't no bloodhound-spirit will hurt my Hoshi as long as we are around!"

Seiwon's reward for his hollow heroism was a kiss from Hoshi and an unconvinced snort from Kalden.

"Well then, you are definitely not safe here anymore." Hayato stood up from the chair and helped Kalden and Hoshi to their feet too. "Now, I'll ask you to come with us. We are going to have a meeting with someone who might hold answers for us all. Then, we can forge a plan for the future, and act accordingly." He looked around, making a short, meaningful eye contact with everyone in the room. "If this is agreeable…" The people around him nodded in unison. "Then we should move. Let's find out what's happening here."


	8. Chapter 8: The Beckoning

The guard tower that once gave home to their headquarters was silent, maybe unnaturally so compared to the noises of the Outer Wall around it. Kalden and Zheng approached the building cautiously, expecting some sort of unpleasant surprise. The two young men pressed their backs against the wall as they scaled the stairs to the main doors, but the shadows held no dangers for them, and they reached the main door without problem.

Kalden was just about to signal the others when Zheng grabbed his shoulder and slowly drew him back, pointing towards the door with his other hand. They moved closer, and listened. From the other side of the door, a quiet conversation could be heard.

"…Chin acts in confusion." A woman's voice. She spoke softly, and her words rang with unearthly calmness, like the crystal waters of a spring. "The trauma from his awakening lingers in his mind and clouds his decisions. This… _insanity_ is not what he would desire if he was his normal self."

"He looks quite adamant about seeing it through." A man. His voice echoed authority and power, yet it sounded bleak and lifeless. The overall impression made Kalden imagine a talking statue.

"No, he is just looking for justifications to calm his remorse. He doesn't want to kill these people, it is against his very nature. But he still thinks he must, and it pains me to see him like this. This is not the Chin I know and love."

"You should tell this to him."

"Don't worry, I will. But I hoped I could reason with you to abandon your mission. If you succeed here, then all will be for nothing, and my words will rang hollow in Chin's ears. He must taste failure to truly listen to my plea."

Kalden and Zheng exchanged glances. They couldn't even fathom what these two were talking about, but it sure didn't sound good. Especially the part where Chin wanted to kill someone.

"I can't do this, Taiko. I must complete this task if I want to be free."

"Are you really so eager to sacrifice those people for your freedom?"

"Their fate is not my concern. Even if they die, I will still have a whole world full of humans to explore."

"You speak like Gelert."

"I'm sorry."

The door suddenly opened up, pushing Kalden and Zheng aside. They barely caught a glimpse of a small, red fox leaping through the entrance before it disappeared behind the wall, completely ignoring the two men.

"It was her!" whispered Zheng, astounded from his discovery. "She was Taiko, the leader of Ba Sing Se's spirits!"

"You can come in now!" came the invitation from the inside. "Or, if you choose, you can continue eavesdropping!"

Kalden was the first to step into the door, and Zheng followed him closely. The single room of the abandoned headquarters was mostly empty sans a few pieces of equipment the activists couldn't take away yet. Even the thick curtains that concealed the activities inside were missing, allowing the mild midday sunlight to pour into the place and dance with the thickening dust in the air.

The man was standing in the middle, facing the door, his hand in his pockets. Kalden instantly knew that he was a professional, his elegant looks and solid stance spoke about confidence and competence. There was something odd about him though, like his body was unnaturally symmetric and well-proportioned; his green eyes felt bland and lifeless, their light was hollow. Kalden had to check twice before making sure that this man was a living being and not a statue.

"My name is Lee," the man began unceremoniously. "I suppose you are Zheng and Ting."

"I'm Kalden." Lee raised an eyebrow, signaling that this turn of events had genuinely surprised him. "But this other guy behind me is really Zheng."

Kalden walked to Lee and offered his hand. It was a somewhat risky move, but he had to make sure that Lee wasn't up to something. He reached him without problem, and Lee accepted his hand without saying anything. His handshake was strong and assertive, like a politician's.

"I can't see professor Hayato," noted Lee. "Is he coming?"

"Yes. He and the others should be here any moment."

Just as Kalden finished his sentence, Lien showed up in the door. She carefully moved in, keeping her eyes on Lee, and moved to the nearest window to check the outside. After making sure that the place was safe, she waved her hand towards the door, and the rest of the group also appeared with Hayato at the front.

Lien stepped to Zheng and leaned close to him, hiding her mouth with her palm as she whispered something to the young man. Zheng's face darkened and he nodded with resignation. Kalden didn't have to think much about what was going on, it was enough to look at Hoshi's face: she was clearly frightened, her face was pale, almost chalk-white, and the way she protectively kept her hands on her belly betrayed her insecurity.

This had to be bloodhound-spirits.

"How many?" Kalden asked from Lien quietly as he slid next to her.

"Twenty-three," answered the young woman. She glanced back at Lee. "I seriously hope that this isn't a trap."

Kalden gulped. He had no idea that there were so many bloodhound-spirits in the whole city.

Hayato and Lee welcomed each other and shook hands. The gesture was quick and uneasy, the professor seemingly had the same disturbing impressions concerning Lee as Kalden.

"Uhm, my sources say that you have a message from governor Chin," began Hayato, his voice cracking from perplexity. "We are here because we are interested in the governor's offer, and wish to know what has changed his mind since our last meeting."

Lee flashed a smile, and the expression froze the blood in Kalden's veins.

"Governor Chin realized that he can't turn a blind eye to the unfolding events. Sweeping the problem under the rug would only worsen the prospects of actually solving it." Lee walked in the middle of the group so that he could have everyone's attention. "He is now willing to lend his support to the former soldiers of the Earth Empire, and help them to conquer the Earth States by providing the weapons and supplies they need. In return, he wants these people to leave Ba Sing Se _forever_."

The tension was palpable. Chin's conditions were reasonable but very tough. From the looks of it, he didn't want to actually lead the soldiers to war, and it made his proposition a little odd. The ex-soldiers didn't have leaders of their own, that which was one of their biggest obstacles. Simply pushing them out from the city with a bunch of stuff sounded rather unwise in the greater scheme of things.

This little detail didn't elude the others either.

"Look," said Ting, "the offer sounds good enough, but we need Chin to lead these people. Without him, they will be just another violent mob crashing through the Earth States. They need a leader, and Chin is the only candidate for this task."

This threw Lee a little off-balance, and his confusion was clearly visible for a short moment. As part of the Republic City Police, Kalden had seen his own share of situations like this: a typical fake negotiation, where one side tried to strike a deal without having anything to back it up. Lee was just fishing in the pond, throwing in bait and waiting for the big catch. He had a plan, just not the one he was trying to sell.

"I'm sure you can make a compromise with governor Chin concerning this matter." Lee's voice fluttered, but he regained his composure much faster than Kalden expected. The others probably couldn't even notice the change of mood. "I'm not here to negotiate, only to deliver a message. An invitation if you will."

"An invitation?" whispered Hayato. "To what?"

The professor had got the bait. Kalden sighed but otherwise chose to not intervene. This Lee was leagues above him, a battle of words would just discredit Kalden even more. He had pushed far enough today, and he didn't want to repeat the same strained conversation as in the house.

Lee stepped to Hayato and placed his hand on the professor's shoulder.

"Governor Chin wants to give a speech to the soldiers in a Unity Corps hangar." Lee got out a small slip of paper and handed it to Hayato. "The time and address is on this paper, as well as the means by which you can enter the building. Gather every soldier you can for the occasion. They will receive their weapons and equipment there, including five fully armed airships they will use to leave the city. Any soldiers left behind will be branded as trespassers and put in prison on sight by the City Watch." Lee glanced around the group, maybe waiting for some sort of rebuff after these rather harsh conditions. "That is all."

A heavy silence befell on the room. For a moment, Kalden could see that Zheng wanted to mention the stuff they had heard from Lee's conversation with Taiko, but in the end, Zheng just lowered his head in shame and remained silent. He didn't have the guts to speak against Lee, and Kalden didn't have the wits. A rather unfortunate occurrence, but it left Kalden with only one option.

"Me and Zheng heard something about Chin planning to kill someone." Kalden's words crashed the glass-sharp silence like a hammer. Everyone had been busy with digesting Chin's message, but now they all turned towards Kalden. "When you talked with Taiko. Right Zheng?"

Zheng nodded, but with his eyes he punched Kalden in the face.

"That shouldn't concern you." Lee's calm answer surprised Kalden. He was expecting another swing and not such a smooth reply.

"It kinda' does." Kalden pushed the topic with the sophistication of a brick. In his mind, he already cursed himself for engaging Lee, but he had to get to the bottom of this.

"You are not the only ones who stir trouble in this city." Lee showed up a small red card. Kalden immediately recognized it: it was an item the Triads used to recognize members and clients. "Unlike the soldiers, the Triads deserve no mercy. They are bribing the spirits with spiritual energy they drain from innocent humans. Taiko wants this business to continue, but Chin wants the Triad dead. Easy as that."

"Are you a Triad member?" Kalden blurted out. He began to feel really stupid.

"I was. Sentenced to a lifetime in prison. Chin gave me a second chance, and I was eager to repent. That's all you have to know." Lee rolled his eyes and Kalden could feel his face turning red. He truly walked right into this like an idiot. "Did I satisfy your curiosity?"

"We are not the center of the world, Kalden." It was really unneeded to put some salt into the wound, but Ting couldn't miss the opportunity. He turned to Lee. "Sorry for my friend's indiscretion. He is a former cop."

"I see!" Lee laughed. "No problem then!"

The others also joined with polite chuckles, with only Kalden left out of the fun to boil in the soup he had cooked. Maybe it was worth the effort though. At least now he knew that Lee was suspicious because he was a former criminal and not because he was brewing something bad. For the first time in the day, Kalden cursed his police-instincts for fooling him like this.

"We will collect the soldiers," announced Hayato after the mirth subsided. "We accept Chin's conditions and I will personally persuade every soldier to do so if I have to."

"I'm glad to hear this." Lee flashed a smile and backed out from the group. "Now, if you excuse me, I have other matters to attend to."

"Of course." Hayato nodded and shook Lee's hand. The strange man theatrically bowed to the others as a goodbye, and left the place at an easy pace.

"Come on guys, we have a lot of work to do," said Ting as Lee disappeared in the stairs. "Kalden, Hoshi, you two are going to be transported to our safe house. You will stay there until we gather the soldiers."

"We want to be with you when the soldiers leave," added Hoshi. Kalden nodded towards his sisters, signing that this is indeed the case.

"Fine by me." Ting turned to Seiwon. "We need more men to spread the news, so you are now with us. Zheng will show you what to do."

"What? Really?" Seiwon's helpless protest made Kalden smile. At least he wouldn't be with them.

"Yes, really. Now man up soldier, and get to work!"

Not even a kiss from Hoshi could cheer up Seiwon as he was taken away by Zheng. Finally, Lien led Kalden and Hoshi away, too, leaving Hayato and Ting behind to work out the details of the operation.

As they took the stairs down, Kalden caught a glimpse of a strange phenomenon: a small red fox was watching them from the top of the guard tower, flanked by two bloodhound-spirits. She looked through Hoshi and then Kalden from afar, shook her head with disbelief, then turned away and disappeared behind the edge of the roof.

The scene left Kalden speechless, and as he replayed the discussion with Lee over and over again in his mind, he began to realize that something was missing. The pieces provided by Lee simply didn't fit together.

 _Why did Chin trust Lee with this message anyway?_

Kalden positioned himself closer to Hoshi, the only stable point currently in his life. No matter what would happen to them, he would be there to protect his sister, and together, they would find a way out. And if this was truly a trap, then he would personally hunt down this Lee and strangle the life out of him with his bare hands.


	9. Chapter 9: The Solution

Baraz did not slow his car even by the slightest as he turned down from the highway. He sped through the curve with perfect finesse, and as soon as the car reached the straight road to the Unity Corps hangar, he floored the gas pedal. The custom-upgraded engine roared its power to the world and the car darted forward with neck-breaking speed, its sleek form turning into a blur.

On the passenger seat, Chin braced himself and tightened his grip on the door handhold. While he had specifically told Baraz to make haste, this wasn't exactly what he had had in mind. Baraz's supernatural senses and reflexes allowed him to control his car perfectly, never missing even the slightest correction and changing gear exactly when it was needed, but he was also getting carried away by the thrill of speed. He was an exceptional driver, but the others on the same road weren't, and Baraz paid less and less attention to the other cars with every passing moment.

In the last intersection before the Unity Corps hangar, the traffic lights turned red just as Baraz reached it. Chin's worst fear came alive when his servant stepped on the gas instead of stopping, just barely dodging a truck that tried to cross and finding the opposite side by slipping through the oncoming traffic. Blowing horns rewarded his crazy maneuver, but Baraz just smiled and put his car back to fifth gear.

"You can slow down now," Chin commanded as he regained his senses from the near-death experience. "We are almost there."

Baraz checked his clock.

"Right on time, Ancient One. I have whittled down your delay on the highway, so we must arrive the same time the others do."

"Thank you, Baraz." Chin patted his servant's back. "Thank you for not killing me."

Baraz's smile widened into a grin. He had left the weight of the situation behind somewhere around the city center and never looked back.

"Always a pleasure, governor!"

Baraz parked the car in front of a large, dark-grey hangar building, one of the many around this part of the city. Its only distinctive feature was the array of chimneys along its spine and the four massive ventilation systems attached to its further end. From the looks of it, it was completely air-proof, with the ability to generate any sort of air conditions inside - from a howling hurricane to deadly vacuum. Perfect for containing the Annihilator Gas.

Chin shook his head. He shouldn't think about that entity as the 'Annihilator Gas' anymore. He had made the necessary arrangements in the Spirit World, so that poor spirit would experience true life today. He must think about her like that: a sentient being; a real, fully-fledged spirit, and not as a mere weapon.

The place around the hangar was empty, save for a beautiful young woman standing in front of the door that led to the auxiliary complex. Her long, pure white robes made a sharp contrast with the grey and gritty walls, giving her an ethereal aura. She really did her best, putting up Chin's favorite form.

"Taiko…" Chin welcomed her as he got closer. "You are early."

The shapeshifter didn't answer immediately. She gently touched Chin's arm and drew him close, maybe a bit too close. As their bodies met, Chin instantly realized where this was going and leant back just in time to dodge Taiko's kiss.

"This was a little underhanded, and really unnecessary," he noted coldly.

Taiko's green eyes flared up and her face reddened from the embarrassment.

"Please Chin, don't do this," she said, clearly confused after Chin's rebuke. Her voice was faltering under a turbulent mess of emotions, mostly nervousness and desperation. "These people don't deserve the fate you have in store for them. There should be another way! You must reconsider your plan before it is too late… I'm begging you!"

Chin's eyes narrowed as he realized what Taiko's game was.

"Did you spy on me?"

This hit the shapeshifter like a lightning. She tried to step away, but Chin grabbed her and kept her in place.

"I secretly followed you and Jing to that cursed weapon bunker," she hissed. "Yes, I saw that… thing. The Annihilator Gas… You can't do this, Chin; you are going to doom us all! If that monster drains all these humans you have gathered, its power will surpass even Gelert's! You must be insane if you think that it won't break free at the first opportunity!"

Her outburst made Chin smile. He knew Taiko well enough to recognize the signs of jealousy on her. She would have fooled any other with this splendid acting, but she was knocking on the wrong door with Chin.

"I suppose you know about the preparations I have made in the Spirit World too."

"Of course. It is a foolish plan. That thing will never accept your gift."

"We will see about that." Chin broke free and stepped to the door. "And please, refer to your new associate as 'her'. Calling her a 'thing' is very rude."

He didn't have to look back to feel Taiko's burning gaze on himself. She nevertheless followed him into the building, boiling in her own soup.

Chin had expected something like this from Taiko, so this intermezzo didn't take him entirely by surprise. Her efforts to undermine a rival before she could ascend to power were a little bit disturbing, but Chin was sure that Taiko would accept the change eventually.

Chin had managed to do it, and his burden had been much heavier to bear.

The inside of the hangar was even less friendly than the outside. Corridors and empty halls followed each other in the auxiliary complex, ending with a large room filled with the machinery from the weapon bunker, all of it left a dull grey. The metal tank in the middle was tightly linked to a nearby air duct with a thick green tube, the only real color in the place, and the cables running from the various devices into the tank or the rest of the complex turned the room into a webbed cave of some sort of daemonic spider who feed on electricity and data.

Jing was waiting for Chin in this room with a grin from ear to ear. She looked jumpy as she toyed with one of the consoles, and not even Taiko's appearance could break her good mood.

"Is everything ready?" Chin asked unceremoniously.

"Of course!" Jing turned a switch and the wall in front of her opened up, revealing the command deck and the main hangar bay. "The test subjects have arrived without any trouble. The ventilation system is powered up and the Annihilator Gas is ready for deployment."

Taiko gave a wide berth to the tank, but Baraz walked right to it and passed his hand over the cold metal surface. Chin could feel the slumbering sentience awakening in the tank, but it was feeble and tormented, like a dying animal in a cage.

"She isn't very active today, isn't she?" Chin's comment widened Jing's grin even further.

"Oh, it was very active in the morning. Almost broke out when we linked up its tank to the ventilation system, so we had to… discipline it. Don't worry, it will have enough power to complete its task, but it won't make much noise until then!"

Probably just to defy Jing, the tank suddenly pealed, like something had just run into it with full force from the inside. It startled Jing and Teiko, but Chin and Baraz remained still. The latter even leaned closer and stuck his ear to the tank, listening to the silence the followed this little incident.

"I can sense her!" Baraz' astonishment was impossible to miss. "She is truly one of her kind."

"And Chin wants to unleash her on us," Taiko added begrudgingly. "She will kill us all!"

"Don't worry, my dear, we have safety measures in place just for that occasion!" Jing's assurance was rewarded with a frown from the shapeshifter, but she pressed on regardless. "If the Annihilator Gas goes rogue, then we will just suck it back to the ventilation system where it will meet a swift demise!"

Baraz just shrugged. He was visibly unimpressed by both Taiko's worries and Jing's so-called safety measures.

"I've seen worse. Personally, I look forward to meet with her."

If she could have hurt others with her eyes, then Taiko would have flayed Baraz on the spot with her gaze.

Chin allowed himself a small chuckle but otherwise didn't comment this. He walked to the command deck and took a look over the hangar bay. The crowd was waiting patiently, maybe three-hundred shabby but enthusiastic men and women in Earth Empire uniforms, sitting in well-arranged rows. They barely made a noise, and the militaristic discipline in their ranks was almost tangible, as well as their suppressed excitement. Only the rearmost row was a bit more tumultuous, as it was occupied by professor Hayato and his followers.

At the opposite end of the hangar, the inner main gate was left slightly open, and through the gap Chin could see large black bodies moving around: Gelert and his daughters were already in place, just in case something went wrong.

He had gone through this last night several times, but the whole act felt just as dire as before.

Baraz handed him a microphone.

"It's time, Ancient One. My soldiers are in position. We are only waiting for you."

"Thank you, Baraz."

Chin took a heavy breath and stepped out to the command deck.

The crowd in the hangar immediately fell silent, and all the heads turned towards him. Chin could see their eyes, weary but filled with hope, trying to see the herald of a better future in the appearance of their governor, their _commander_.

"Soldiers of the Earth Empire!" he began, and his thundering words from the speakers were welcomed with a loud applause. "Today, I stand in front of you to deliver what you have been waiting for since the outrageous fall of your empire: a rebirth!" The cheering intensified. "The time has come for the world to witness another turn of the eternal cycle. Growth after destruction, progress after sacrifice, life after death. It is time for the light to break the darkness." Behind Chin, Jing raised an eyebrow. So far, she had thought that she knew what was going on, but Chin's speech didn't fit into her conception. "And you, brave followers of the fallen Earth Empire, you will be the substance of the change, leaving a better world behind!"

* * *

In the back row, Hoshi and Kalden exchanged glances. Chin's speech was double-meaning, and while the soldiers were oblivious to it, the siblings had caught the less pleasant side readily. When Chin had mentioned the light breaking the darkness, the first thing that had come to Kalden's mind was one of those murderous glowing-white spirits breaking a soldier, just like in that ambush three days ago.

"This was a bad idea," whispered Hoshi, and Kalden nodded. "We should leave while we can!"

Without saying anything, Kalden stood up and slowly crept out from the row with Hoshi following him closely.

"Wait!" Hoshi pulled Kalden back just as they reached the end of the chairs. "We must get Seiwon!"

Kalden hissed and looked through the crowd in the front. Seiwon was somewhere there, with the other soldiers, but there was no way to find him now.

"Look, let's just leave this place for now." Hoshi tried to argue, but Kalden pushed her out to the empty rear area and towards the main gate before she had the chance. "I'll come back for him when you are safe, I promise."

Two City Watch officers appeared in a side door, but they ignored the siblings and walked to professor Hayato. The three exchanged a few words then the professor left with them through the door. A loud clank signed that he was the last one who could use that exit.

Kalden could feel his throat drying up. He hastened his steps, hauling Hoshi with him, but it looked like he would never reach the gate. Chin continued his speech, and the soldiers cheered, ignorant of the impending doom.

The gate was open, but just enough for a man to pass through it. Kalden fastened his hold on Hoshi, and she pressed closer to him as they finally reached the gap.

Kalden stepped forward to pass through the gate, prepared to fight his way into the city if he had to, but the thing that suddenly appeared in front of him to block the exit wasn't something he could have expected.

It was the head of an enormous white bloodhound-spirit, at least twice as big as the black ones. Kalden faced a jaw as large as he was, filled with sword-sized fangs. The monster's glowing red eye radiated a terrible rage and an incomprehensible power, freezing the blood in Kalden's veins. Behind it, at least a dozen normal bloodhound-spirits could be seen.

The white bloodhound-spirit first looked through Kalden, and then Hoshi. Its bestial face flinched, like it was seeing something appalling.

Hoshi muffled a scream and instinctively covered up her swollen belly with her hands. Kalden was quick to act and stood between his sister and the white bloodhound-spirit, even though his guts overwhelmingly disagreed with this move.

" _What do you want?_ " asked the monster with a deep roar. Unlike the black ones, he sounded male.

"We want to leave," Kalden forced out. A hundred sirens were screaming in his head, yet he managed to keep at least a fraction of dignity to speak clearly. Hoshi's closeness and the knowledge that her safety depended on him helped a lot. "We changed our minds. We don't want to go with the soldiers."

The spirit-bloodhound glanced through them, and as his eye wandered from Kalden to Hoshi, his head rose, clearing the way through the gate.

" _You stay, but the girl can go,_ " he said finally.

Kalden bit into his lips, and after a moment of thinking, he stepped away from the gate to help Hoshi through. It didn't matter for him anyway as long as his sister was safe. The bloodhound-spirits would keep her out of harm's way, Kalden was sure about that, and it was evident that the white one had something similar in mind too.

However, Hoshi decided to not play along.

"I'm not going without you," she stated to Kalden and stepped away from the gate.

This surprised even the white bloodhound-spirit, but his shock was nothing compared to Kalden's.

" _It isn't safe here,_ " added the spirit. He was now clearly alarmed, and the rage in his eyes was replaced with concern. " _My daughters will take you back home, far away from this place._ " Kalden's jaw dropped upon hearing this proposal, but Hoshi was entirely unaffected. " _Unfortunately, I can't let your brother come with you. He must stay here._ "

"Come on Hoshi, don't be stupid!" Kalden pleaded. He was speaking to a wall. Hoshi turned her back to the gate and simply walked away without saying anything.

Having no better idea, Kalden followed her back to the hangar, and whatever fate Chin had for them.

* * *

"You know too well what I'm talking about," Chin continued. In the corner of his eye, he could see as Professor Hayato was led away into safety. As a member of the high council of the Ba Sing Se University, he was way too precious to be sacrificed. "The Earth Kingdom had fallen, and from its ashes the Earth Empire rose." Two activists also tried to sneak away, but Gelert turned them back from the gate. "Your empire!" The ovation climaxed, and Chin had to take a momentary break because the soldiers became louder than the speakers. "Then, the cycle turned again, and the Earth Empire met its fate. It has succumbed, and from its dead body grew the Earth States and Ba Sing Se. However, there were parts that refused to simply die. They carried the rot and the stench of death, yet even in their ignorance they were just waiting for the chance to fulfill their part in the cycle, and surrender to their ultimate demise so that a purifying new life could emerge." As his speech became increasingly straightforward, discontent also began to appear among the soldiers. Not everyone was blinded by fanaticism and hope, and these people now started to slowly realize what was going on. "You might ask, what about _me_? What about _Chin's Army_? All I can say: I play my part just as my army did three days ago. The responsibility is mine to take to make the cycle turn, and for that, I ask for your forgiveness…"

The whole hangar was struck dumbfounded. Most of the soldiers just stared at Chin with helpless perplexity written all over their faces, trying to understand what their savior had just said.

There was a long moment of unbearable silence, like the whole universe had stopped just to see what was going to happen next.

An airduct vent opened up in the middle of the left wall, just above the floor. The nearby soldiers jumped to their feet, and some of them even started to move away. Chin could feel the spark escaping the metal tank. Her hunger rose as she raced through the ventilation system, and she quickly found the way to her victims.

The cloud of purple gas burst out the vent and hurled herself at the nearest soldier. The man screamed, but it was too late for him, and the gas disappeared in his mouth; only a second later he collapsed to the floor, dead and picked clean of spiritual energy.

Panic broke out almost immediately as the gas re-appeared above the lifeless body, but it didn't last long. The gas caught everyone, first one-by-one, but as she grew in size she was soon able to drain multiple humans in the same time. Some tried to fight, but they had no chance; some fell to their knees and prayed for mercy, but they received none.

Every death cut into Chin, and the world started to swirl with him as his heart broke under the weight of the soldiers' demise. Humans he was supposed to protect died in droves in front of him, and it was all his doing. His mortal body shivered under the onslaught of grief and regret, and for a moment, he almost fell to this weakness and fainted.

A spark of light brought him back, dancing in the purple gas cloud. The phenomenon was bouncing in the gas seemingly without purpose, but with increasing vigor. Each dead body that hit the floor of the hangar didn't just make the gas grow; they also turned the spark more lively, and its movement in the gas slowly became deliberate, drawing circles and other geometric formations in the air.

From death, a new life had sprung.

* * *

Hoshi was halfway back to their chairs when Chin unleashed the gas. Like a stone thrown into a calm lake, the first death caused a ripple in the gathered mass, and by the time it reached the siblings, the gas claimed five more lives.

Kalden wasted no time in pulling Hoshi closer. He let his training take over, and his eyes quickly found their escape: the main gate opened up a little more, revealing the white bloodhound-spirit. He was standing a little bit away from the opening, leaving just enough space for two people to shoot past.

A massive cloud of purple gas rose from the panicking crowd, towering above the hapless soldiers like a cascade of death. Tendrils extended out from the main body into the crowd, catching men and women indiscriminately. Anyone who came in contact with these terrible appendages died quickly and without so much as a squeak.

Seiwon tried to break through the bewildered crowd, but a tendril caught him and he disappeared in the mass of panicking soldiers. Kalden turned Hoshi's head away just in time so that she couldn't see the death of her child's father.

They had only chance, and Kalden decided to not spoil it. He darted out towards the gate, towing his sister with him, and didn't look back. They ran, and soon broke out from the maelstrom.

Kalden didn't let his focus drop, but he began to feel funny. A purple hue crept into the edge of his vision, and his limbs turned slow and heavy. It was like he hadn't slept for years, and the resulting fatigue felt rather… _invasive_ , as if it actively tried to suck the energy out of him.

He tumbled, so Hoshi got ahead of him. As she turned back to check what was wrong, Kalden could see on her terrified face that the worst had happened.

"KALDEN! NO!" screamed Hoshi, but her voice came from very, very far away. Kalden tried to push himself forward, but his legs barely obeyed his commands. The world fell apart; it became cold, dark and lifeless.

He was dimly aware of the gas swirling around his head, but he couldn't do anything with the information. He fell back to his knees and almost collapsed to the floor, but Hoshi caught him. She tried to drag Kalden to the gate, even though it was something like a whole eternity away for him.

The gas crept along his arm, and through that, it reached Hoshi. She blew it off with a blast of airbending, and then moved out of Kalden's vision, probably to defend herself against another attack, but he could barely register his own existence at this point.

There was something - he could feel a powerful air blast running through his body - and when he looked up, Hoshi was almost entirely enveloped by the purple gas. She fought with her, but for each extension she blew away, two others attacked her. It was just a matter of time, and then the gas reached her nose. Hoshi's body stiffened, and for a moment, the picture of her sister dying was all that remained for Kalden.

His muscles tightened as he mobilized his hidden reserves. The overwhelming weakness disappeared from his body as the teardrop of strength spread into his limbs. He sprang forward with the relentless momentum of a battering ram, bumping into Hoshi's falling body with full force. The impact made him lose his direction, and he crashed into the gate. Hoshi, however, flew right through the opening, where Kalden wanted her to go.

 _Into safety._

Kalden closed his eyes, and embraced death knowing that he had at least saved his sister.

* * *

It lasted maybe five minutes, and then the soldiers were all dead, their bodies splayed on the floor of the hangar bay like a carpet of green uniforms. There were only two who made to the gate, and even though one of them was an airbender, the gas still caught them.

"Wow, that was fantastic!" broke the silence Jing. "I could have earned a fortune with this weapon!"

She stepped to a console and turned on some switches. A series of vents opened up in the hangar, and with a sharp whistle they began to suck out the air. It was barely enough to break off a few patches from the gas cloud that now spread almost all over the hangar. Whenever it looked like the vacuum would win the fight, the spark in the gas glowed up and everything remained in place.

"Spirits be cursed, it isn't working!" Jing frantically reset some switches, turning the turbines to maximum power, but it had no effect. "Why isn't it working?"

"Calm down Jing, you can no longer control her."

" _Her?_ What are you talking about?" Jing suddenly stopped her tinkering with the various switches. She looked up to Chin, then her eyes passed through Taiko and Baraz. "Wait a minute… Who… Who are you?"

"It is not your concern," Chin answered patiently. Jing made a step back, then leapt to the door to escape but Baraz stopped her. He was just a blur in the air as he caught the woman, and the obviously supernatural act ended the masquerade. Jing's eyes opened wide and her face turned chalk-white as she realized what was going on.

"You are not humans…" she whispered, and pointed at Chin with shaking hands. "You are not human!"

Chin had no intention of going into this, so he left the traumatized Jing in Baraz's care. He stepped to the door that led to the scaffold in the hangar bay and after a moment of consideration, he opened it up and stepped out from the safety of the command deck.

The gas swirled up, and Chin could feel her attention on himself. Her hunger was appeased by the hundreds of humans she had consumed, but she was looking for much more than simple spirit energy.

Chin stopped at the edge of the scaffold, and reached out towards the spark. "Come," he said gently, "let me reward you."

The gas swirled again like an angry whirlwind, and the spark hovered away a little. Her curiosity proved to be stronger than her deliberation, and when Chin remained unmoving, the spark decided to slide to him.

A flash of blinding light enveloped the hangar as Chin unleashed his power. The world around them changed, and a large bright-blue ocean emerged from the whiteness, spanning from one end of the orange horizon to the other. They were both hovering above the waters, even though Chin did it much more confidently than the spark and the surrounding gas.

They weren't alone here: spirits of all kinds circled around them, stirring the energies of the Spirit Realm into the right pattern.

Chin touched the spark, placing his left hand on the top and her right on the middle. Then, he closed his eyes, and began the ceremony.

Four columns of water rose from the ocean, first straight up towards the sky and then they twisted into a slowly spiraling helical shape. A warm golden light ran through these beams; it spread into the gas and through it into the spark of light.

"Yomi," whispered Chin, and he let the name shape the spirit under his hands. The spark grew and shifted, revealing a pair of arms and legs. It didn't take long, and Chin had a slim, featureless young woman in front of him. Her skin had a dark crimson color, and her body was smooth, lacking any sort of detail other than a pair of almond-shaped eyes. From her head, her hair spread into the gas like a halo of white threads, and the gas became thick and dark around her.

Taiko was right in one thing: the newborn was powerful. Chin sensed a considerable potential in her, though now it barely made her equal to Baraz. Over time however, she would surpass everyone currently in Chin's service.

Her hands rose to find a solid hold on her new existence. The clumsy, wavering moves reached Chin's hands, then they ran up his arms and to his head. From there, she was gifted with a full consciousness: dreams, sensations, desires and fears that were Chin's own embedded into her mind, alongside all the necessary knowledge she must know about the world.

Her violet, pupil-less eyes opened, and with that, she was complete.

The golden light spread, enveloping the world once more. When it dissolved, Chin and his newest servant were back in the hangar again.

Yomi slid away from Chin, and her body floated through the hangar with the grace of a mild spring breeze. She stretched her limbs and looked around from the new perspective Chin had granted to her. The cloud of gas around her swirled, expanded, then shrunk as she tested her control over it. It was a heart-warming sight, a child slowly exploring the world.

Not even the sea of dead bodies under her could ruin the moment.

"Open the hangar!" commanded Chin, and Baraz obeyed without question.

The chimneys on the roof opened up with a loud hiss, pouring sunlight into the hangar. This immediately caught Yomi's attention, and as she looked up, she was staring into well-deserved freedom. Yet, she didn't move. Her eyes bounced back to Chin, then to the nearest chimney. She knew her place, and was waiting for permission from her creator.

Chin could feel her excitement, and in many ways, it reminded him the soldiers. She was ready to prove her worth in action just like them, though her eagerness was fresh and pure, free from the stain of a fallen cause. In many ways, those poor men and women were reborn in Yomi, exchanging their sad existence for a new wonder. What would have brought only death and chaos to the world now gave life and order.

However, some of them were still at large. The cycle must come to a full end, but it wouldn't happen until not one former soldier of the Earth Empire strode the streets of Ba Sing Se.

"The people you have tasted…" Yomi drew closer to better listen to Chin's words. "There are more in this city. Find them, and kill them. Then return to me."

Yomi's eyes narrowed and Chin saw the murderous determination in them as her less pleasant side resurfaced. She spun around then darted out, swiftly flying through the chimney and into the city to complete the task Chin had given to her.

With Yomi dealt with, Chin walked back to the control room.

Jing was lying on the floor, knocked out by the discharge of the temporal spirit portal Chin had used to take Yomi into the Spirit World and back.

Baraz knew his part. His right arm glowed up and turned into a long white spike. He stepped to a nearby console and smashed it with his weapon-limb, showering Jing with a rain of sparks. This revived her, but as she tried to jump up, her legs collapsed and she almost fell back to the floor. Chin caught her mid-way, and helped her to stand up.

"What's… what's happened?" murmured Jing faintly. Her eyes were hazy and her face was pale, like she had just woken up from a bad dream.

"What's your last memory?" asked back Chin thoughtfully. Taiko also stepped to them and took over the weakened Jing from him.

"I… I had breakfast…" Jing tried to make a step on her own but failed, and if not for Taiko, she would have head-butt the ruined console. "What about the Annihilator Gas? Did something go wrong? I… I can't remember…"

"Everything went exactly as planned. There was a slight malfunction when you sucked the gas back to the ventilation system and one of the consoles exploded. It knocked you flat."

Jing's feeble laughter was all that Chin expected. She wouldn't remember or suspect anything from the last hours.

He now turned to Baraz.

"Get your men and clean up the place," Baraz nodded and prepared to leave, but Chin held him back for a moment. "Another thing. Those men and women deserve a proper burial. Let's honor their sacrifice at least with this. Enforce this on Gelert too. No feeding on the corpses."

Baraz gave him a thumbs up then left. Chin let Taiko take care of Jing, and after making a short check, he decided that it was time for him to leave.

As Chin stepped outside, a gentle breeze passed over him, revivifying his senses after these tormenting days. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with fresh air, and slowly breathed out, enjoying the air of Ba Sing Se running through his body.

It felt just so much better knowing that his city was now a safer place for the millions of humans who lived in it under his protection. Even if it came with such a great cost.

For the first time since he had arranged this event, Chin knew for sure that it was worth it.


	10. Chapter 10: The Awakening

All his daughters gathered on top of their tree. In the nest-like place, they surrounded their sleeping mother, waiting for something to happen. The pod near the large black she-hound had stopped glowing a long ago, the body inside that had once been a young woman and her unborn baby had been entirely consumed; only her clothes were floating purposelessly in the green liquid.

Gelert watched the scene from the edge of the top. Light and darkness vied in his spirit as his beloved Sarama remained unmoving. Anger rose in him, for even though the woman had the right spiritual imprint, Gelert could only save a small fraction of her energies – a fraction that might prove insufficient to reawaken such a powerful spirit like Sarama; hope calmed his bitter resentment, as he knew that returning from the Land of the Lost was a long and ponderous process.

One of the flowers around Sarama's body suddenly turned grey and started to drop its petals. Soon, the other flowers did the same thing, slowly covering Sarama's body with a cloak of greyness.

He couldn't stand to watch this anymore. At this point, their failure was just growing more evident with each passing moment. Gelert turned away, and prepared to leave.

" _My love! I have returned!"_

The beautiful voice stopped him immediately. His body stiffened as his mind finally comprehended what had happened.

" _Sarama!"_ he whispered, and turned back to the top.

There she was now, standing up from the remains of the flowers. She shook herself, then stepped out from the cavity that held her sleeping body. Her steps were wavering, as though invisible phantoms buffeted her with blows. Gelert didn't hesitate to finally reunite with his love. Only when their heads met did he give a relieved sigh.

" _Gelert, my dearest love…"_ Sarama whispered in return, and Gelert could feel a great turmoil in her voice. _"I was dreaming…"_

They started to circle around each other, their black and white bodies blending together.

" _In my dream, you were standing over my still body for time uncounted. Shadows played around you, and filled your heart with rage. When you unleashed your wrath on the mortals, a man wielding the power of Raava defeated you and punished you with the curse of the Lost."_

" _Darkness, stemming from my desperation, claimed me,"_ explained Gelert. _"Raava is no more. The Bright Lady merged with a human, and now concerns herself only with the mortals' salvation."_

" _In my dream, the Arrow People forgot who I was,"_ continued Sarama. _"They grew dull and rigid. Even though they cleaned my statue and gave small offerings, they no longer danced and loved around it under the full moon. It saddened me greatly."_

There was a brief moment of silence. As they swirled in perfect unison, Gelert couldn't miss the grief in Sarama's blue eyes.

" _In my dream, I saw one of our daughters as she became a human's companion. A great hero was this woman was, yet she fell, and our daughter with her. I cried over their dead bodies, and from my tears, a terrible war grew."_

" _She died honorably, struck down by another woman carrying a spirit-killer sword. I bear my loss with pride."_

They stopped, and Sarama walked to the edge of the treetop, staring into the Spirit World.

" _In my dream, the Arrow People died, incinerated by the fires of Agni. Their screams tore my heart into a thousand pieces."_

From her voice, it was clear that she was approaching a much heavier subject. Gelert knew too well what it was.

" _In my dream, I stood beside my brother again."_ A teardrop rolled down her face and disappeared between her jaws. _"I relived his duel with Vaatu, as the Dark Master cowardly tricked him and snatched his victory. The sinister darkness oozed into my brother's metal body in the front of my eyes, and killed him outright. The grief struck me helpless, and Vaatu banished me to the Land of the Lost."_

" _A human girl destroyed the Dark Master not long ago,"_ noted Gelert.

This made Sarama snarl.

" _Then I must kill her for stealing my revenge!"_

Gelert could barely believe his ears. This would be surely a problem in the future. As far as he knew, this girl was Raava's vessel now, so her death would have… consequences.

" _What else did you dream my love?"_

" _In my dream, an Ancient One woke up from his sleep to reclaim what was rightfully his. He freed you from your prison and made you his servant."_

" _I can't deny this. I'm obliged to serve him."_

" _Yes, we are,"_ nodded Sarama. _"In my dream…"_

Suddenly, her eyes opened wide, and her ears perked up, like she had just remembered something very important. Before Gelert could intrigue, she hurried back to her sleeping place and leant into it.

A sharp yelp could be heard from the cavity.

When Sarama's head reappeared, she held a small, black pup. The poor thing was still blind, and she yelped helplessly while hanging from her mother's mouth.

" _In my dream,"_ Sarama said softly, _"I bore a daughter, for the one we have lost. This gave me hope…. and strength to come back."_

As Sarama walked back to him, Gelert checked the newcomer, carefully sniffing through the pup. Sensing her father's touch, she stopped yelping and sniffed back. Her short, flustered breathing was the sweetest song to Gelert's ears, calming the dark storm in his heart once and for all.

Their daughters welcomed their new sister with fervent howling, and their choir was soon joined by their newly awakening brothers below. The voice of the pack was carried far and wide in the Spirit World as they celebrated the return of their mother and the birth of the pup.

With its purpose done, the spirit pod between the branches began to discreetly melt away, leaving only the clothes of a young woman behind.

 **THE END**

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed the story! Comment and review, all opinions are welcomed!


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